I 


^Igffi 


THE    MAP   OF    LIFE 


WORKS  BY  WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY. 


HISTORY  of  ENGLAND  in  the  EIGHTEENTH 
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CyT-*-"^^ 


THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 


CONDUCT   AND    CHARACTER 


WILLIAM    EDWAKI>  HARTPOLE    LECKY 


'La  vie  n'est  pas  un  plaisir  ni  une  douleur, 
mais  une  affaire  grave  dont  nous  somraes  charges, 
et  qu'il  faut  conduiie  et  terminer  A  notre  honneur ' 

ToCQUKVILLE 


NEW     EDITION 


LONGMANS,    GEEEN,    AND     CO. 

39    PATERNOSTER    ROW,    LONDON 
NEW   YORK  AND  BOMBAY 

1900 

All    rightv    reserred 


g-^3  76" 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE. 

First  ^printed  September  1899.  Reprinted  November 
1899;  December  1899;  January  1900  («;itA 
corrections) . 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

How  far  reasoning  on  happiness  is  of  any  use       ....  1 

The  arguments  of  the  Determiuist *  2 

The  arguments  for  free  will 3 

Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum        .        ^ 5 

CHAPTER  II 

Happiness  a  condition  of  mind  and  often  confused  with  the 

means  of  attaining  it 7 

Circumstances    and    character    contribute    to    it    in    different 

degrees 7 

Rehgion,  Stoicism,  and  Eastern  nations  seek  it  mainly  by  act- 
ing on  disposition 7 

Sensational  philosophies  and  industrial  and  progressive  nations 

seek  it  chiefly  in  ina^o^ifiji  circumstances 8 

English  character .        .      ' 8 

Action  of  the  body  on  happiness 10 

Influence  of  predispositions  in  reasonings  on  life  .         .        .         .11 

Promotion  of  health  by  legislation,  fashion  and  self-culture     .     .  12 

SHght  causes  of  life  failures 13 

Effects  of  sanitary  reform 14 

Diminished  disease  does  not   always  imply  a  higher  level  of 

health 15 

Two  causes  depressing  health 15 

Encroachments  on  Hberty  in  sanitary  legislation          ...  16 
Sanitary  education — its  chief  articles — its    possible  exaggera- 
tion       16 

Constant  thought  about  health  not  the  way  to  attain  it        ,        .17 


Vlll  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

CHAPTER  III 

PAOB 

Some  general    rales  of   happiness — 1.  A  life  full  of  work. — 

Happiness  should  not  be  the  main  object  of  pursuit    .        .     .  19 

Carlyle  on  Ennui 20 

2.  Aim    rather    at     avoiding    suffering    than    attaining    plea- 

sure       21 

3.  The  greatest  pleasures  and  pains  in  spheres  accessible  to  all  21 

4.  Importance   and   difficulty   of  realising  our  blessings   while 
they  last 24 

Comparison  and  contrast 25 

Content  not  the  quality  of  progressive  societies   .        .        .        .26 

The  problem  of  balancing  content  and  the  desire  for  progress     .  27 

What  civilisation  can  do  for  happiness     .        .        .        .        .    .  27 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  relation  of  morals  to  happiness. — The  Utilitarian  justifica- 
tion of  virtue  insufficient 29 

Power  of  man  to  aim  at  something  different  from  and  higher 

than  happiness *       .     .  31 

General  coincidence  of  duty  and  happiness 32 

The  creation  of  unselfish  interests  one  of  the  chief  elements  of 

happiness 33 

Burke  on  a  well-ordered  life 33 

Improvement    of    character     more    within    our    power    than 

improvement  of  intellect 34 

High  moral  qualities  often  go  with  low  intellectual  power    .         .  34 
Dangers  attaching  to  the  unselfish  side  of  our  nature. — Active 

charity  personally  supervised  least  subject  to  abuse    .         .     .  35 

Disproportioned  compassion 36 

Treatment  of  animals .         .     .  39 


CHAPTER  V 

Changes  of  morals  chiefly  in  the  proportionate  value  attached  to 

different  virtues 42 

Military,  civic,  and  intellectual  virtues 42 

The  mediaeval  type 43 

Modifications  introduced  by  Protestantism 45 

BosBuet  and  Louis  XIV 46 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAOK 

Persecution. — Operations  at  childbirth. — Usury       .        .        .     .  48 
Every  great  religion  and  philosophic  system  produces  or  favours 

a  distinct  moral  type .48 

Variations  in  moral  judgments 49 

Complexity  of  moral  influences  in  modern  times. — The  indus- 
trial type 50 

Qualified  by  other  influences    .         .         .         .         .        ,         .     .  51 

Unnecessary  suffering *         ...  64 

Goethe's  exposition  of  modern  morals 55 

Morals  hitherto  too  much  treated  negatively         ....  56 

Possibility  of  an  over- sensitive  conscience 57 

Increased  sense  of  the  obligations  of  an  active  life        ...  58 


CHAPTER  VI 

In    the  guidance   of   life  action    more  important    than    pure 

reasoning 59 

The  enforcement  of  active  duty  now  specially  needed      .         .     .  59 

Temptations  to  luxurious  idleness         .         .         ....  60 

Rectification  of  false  ideals. — The  conqueror 61 

The  luxury  of  ostentation 61 

Glorification  of  the  demi-monde 68 

Study  of  ideals 63 

The  human   mind  more  capable   of  distinguishing  right  from 

wrong  than  of  measuring  merit  and  demerit      .         .         .     .  64 

Fallibility  of  moral  judgments 65 

Eules  for  moral  judgment 69 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  school  of  Rousseau  considers  man  by  nature  wholly  good    .  72 

Other  schools  maintain  that  he  is  absolutely  depraved     .         .     .  72 

Exaggerations  of  these  schools .  74 

The   restraining  conscience   distinctively  human. — Comparison 

with  the  animals 75 

Reality  of  human  depravity. — Illustrated  by  war  ...  77 
Large    amount    of    pure    malevolence. — Political    crime. — The 

press *        .     .  79 

Mendacity  in  finance 80 

The  sane  view  of  human  character 82 

We   learn  with  age  to   value  restraints,  to  expect  moderately 

and  value  compromise     ........  82 


THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGK 

Moral  compromise  a  necessity  in  life. — Statement  of  Newman    .  83 

Impossibility  of  acting  on  it 83 

Moral  considerations  though  the  highest  must  not  absorb  all 

others 85 

Truthfulness — cases  in  which  it  may  be  departed  from    .        .     .  86 

Moral  compromise  in  war 

War  necessarily  stimulates    the  malevolent    passions  and 

practises  deception 87 

Rights  of  war  in  early  stages  of  civihsation        .        .        .     .  87 

Distinction  between  Greeks  and  Barbarians    ....  88 
Roman  moralists  insisted  on  just  causes  of  war  and  on  formal 

declaration 89 

Treatment  of  prisoners. — Combatants  and  non-combatants    .  90 

Treatment  of  private  property 90 

Lawful  and  unlawful  methods  of  conducting  war   ...  91 

Abdication  by  the  soldier  of  private  judgment  and  free  will    .  92 

Distinctions  and  compromises 93 

Cases  in  which  the  military  oath  may  be  broken. — Illegal 

orders 94 

Violation  of  religious  obligations. — The  Sepoy  mutiny       .    .  95 

The  Italian  conscript. — Fenians  in  the  British  army      .        .  98 


CHAPTER  IX 

Moral  compromise  in  the  la/w 

"What  advocates  may  and  may  not  do 101 

Inevitable  temptations  of  the  profession 102 

Its  condemnation  by  Swift,  Arnold,  Macaulay,  Bentham         .  102 

Its  defence  by  Paley,  Johnson,  Basil  Montagu  .  .  .  .  103 
How  far  a  lawyer  may    support  a  bad  case. — St.  Thomas 

Aquinas  and  Catholic  casuists 104 

Sir  Matthew  Hale. — General  custom  in  England  .  .  .  105 
Distinction    between  the  etiquette   of  prosecution    and    of 

defence 106 

The  case  of  Courvoisier 106 

Statement  of  Lord  Brougham 108 

The  license  of  cross-examination. — Technicalities  defeating 

justice 109 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGK 

Advantage  of  trial  by  jury  . Ill 

Necessity  of  the  profession  of  advocate 112 

Moral  compromise  in,  ^politics 

Necessity  of  party 112 

How  far  conscientious  differences  should  impair  party  alle- 
giance            113 

Lines  of  conduct  adopted  when  such  differences  arise        .     .  113 

Parliamentary  obstruction 115 

Moral  difficulties  inseparable  from  party 116 

Evil  of  extreme  view  of  party  allegiance. — Government  and 

the  Opposition 117 

Relations  of  members  to  their  constituents        .        .        .     .  119 

Votes  given  without  adequate  knowledge        ....  122 

Diminished  power  of  the  private  member 125 


CHAPTER  X 

THE.    STATESMAN 

Duty  of  a  statesman  when  the  interests  and  wishes  of  his 

nation  conflict 127 

Nature  and  extent  of  poHtical  trusteeship 128 

Temperance  questions 129 

Legitimate  and  illegitimate  time-serving 131 

Education  questions 132 

Inconsistency  in  politics — how  far  it  should  be  condemned .        .138 

The  conduct  of  Peel  in  1829  and  1845 138 

The  conduct  of  Disraeli  in  1867 139 

Different  degrees  of  weight  to  be  attached  to  party  considera- 
tions      141 

Temptations  to  war 143 

Temptations  of  aristocratic  and  of  democratic  governments    ,    .  145 

Necessity  of  assimilating  legislation 147 

Legislation  violating  contracts. — Irish  land  legislation    .         .     .  148 
Questions  forced  into  prominence  for  party  objects      .         .         .  153 
The  judgment  of  public  servants  who  have  committed  inde- 
fensible acts 154 

The  French  coup  d'etat  of  1851    .......  155 

Judgments  passed  upon  it 165 

Probable  multiplication  of  coups  d'etat        .....  170 


Xll  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

PAGE 

Governor  Eyre 171 

The  Jameson  raid 173 

How  statesmen  should  deal  with  political  misdeeds        .        .     .  177 
The    standard   of    international  morals — questions    connected 

with  it .178 

The  ethics  of  annexation 181 

Political  morals  and  public  opinion      ......  182 


CHAPTER  XI 

Moral  compromise  in  the  Church 

Difl&culties  of  reconciling  old  formularies  with  changed  beliefs  185 
Cause  of  some  great  revolutions  of  belief. — The  Copernican 

system. — Discovery  of  Newton 185 

The  antiquity  of  the  world,  of  death,  and  of  man       .         .     .  187 

The  Darwinian  theory 188 

Comparative       mythology. — Biblical      criticism. — Scientific 

habits  of  thought 188 

General  incorporation  of  new  ideas  into  the  Church        .         .  190 

Growth  of  the  sacerdotal  spirit 191 

The  two  theories  of  the  Reformation 192 

Modern  Ritualism 196 

Its  various  elements  of  attraction 197 

Diversity  of  teaching  has  not  enfeebled  the  Church    .         .     .  199 
Its  literary  activity. — Proofs  that  the  Church  is  in  touch  with 

educated  laymen 200 

Its  political  influence — how  far  this  is  a  test  of  vitality      .     .  204 

Its  influence  on  education 205 

Its  spiritual  influence           .         .         .         .         •         ...  205 
How  far  clergj^men  who  dissent  from  parts  of  its  theology 

can  remain  within  it 206 

Newman  on  a  Latitudinarian  establishment       .         .         .     .  208 
Obligations  imposed  on  the  clergy  by  the  fact  of  Establish- 
ment    209 

Attitude  of  laymen  towards  the  Church 210 

Increasing  sense  of  the  relativity  of  belief       .        .        .        .211 

This  tendency  strengthens  with  age 212 

The  conflict  between  belief  and  scepticism      ....  214 

Power  of  religion  to  undergo  transformation      .        .        .     .  214 

Probable  influence  of  the  sacerdotal  spirit  on  the  Church       .  215 


CONTEXTS  Xlil 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  CHAKACTER 


PAG! 


A   Bound  judgment  of  our  own  characters  essential   to  moral 

improvement .  219 

Analogies  between  character  and  taste 220 

The   strongest    desire  generally  prevails,   but  desires    may   be 

modified      . \     .  222 

Passions  and  habits 223 

Exaggerated  regard  for  the  future. — A  happy  childhood  .     .  223 

Choice  of  pleasures. — Athletic  games 224 

The  intellectual  pleasures 225 

Their    tendency  to   enhance    other    pleasures. — Importance   of 

specialisation  . 226 

And  of  judicious  selection 227 

Education  may  act  specially  on  the  desires  or  on  the  will   .         .  229 

Modern  education  and  tendencies  of  the  former  kind       .         .     .  229 

Old  Catholic  training  mainly  of  the  will. — Its  effects  .         .         .  230 

Anglo-Saxon  types  in  the  seventeenth  century         .         .         .     .  231 

Capriciousness  of  will  power — heroism  often  succumbs  to  vice      .  232 

Courage — its  varieties  and  inconsistencies 233 

The   circumstances  of    life  the    school    of  will. — Its  place   in 

character 234 

Dangers  of  an  early  competence. — Choice  of  work       .         .         .  235 

Choice  of  friends. — Effect  of  early  friendship  on  character      .     .  236 

Mastery  of  will  over  thoughts. — Its  intellectual  importance         .  237 

Its  importance  in  moral  culture 238 

Great  difference  among  men  in  this  respect  ....  239 

Means  of  governing  thought 240 

The  dream  power — its  great  place  in  life 241 

Especially  in  the  early  stages  of  humanity 243 

Moral  safety  valves— danger  of  inventing  unreal  crimes      .         .  244 

Character  of  the  English  gentleman         .         .         .       - .         .     .  247 

Different  ways  of  treating  temptation 248 


CHAPTER  XIII 

MONEY 

Henry  Taylor  on  its  relation  to  character 250 

Difiference  between  real  and  professed  beliefs  about  money  .     250 


XIV  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

PAGK 

Its  relation  to  happiness  in  different  grades  of  life  .         .         .     .  251 

The  cost  of  pleasures 257 

Lives  of  the  millionaires 262 

Leaders  of  Society 265 

The  great  speculator         . 267 

Expenditure  in  charity. — Eules  for  regulating  it .  .  .  .  268 
Advantages  and  disadvantages  of   a   large  very   wealthy  class 

in  a  nation 272 

Directions   in  which  philanthropic    expenditure   may  be   best 

turned .  276 


CHAPTER    XIV 

MARKIAGE 

Its  importance  and  the  motives  that  lead  to  it         .        .        .     .    280 
The  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  it  specially  demands    .        .    282 


Duty  to  the  unborn. — Improvident  marriages 
The  doctrine  of  heredity  and  its  consequences 

Religious  celibacy 

Marriages  of  dissimilar  types  often  peculiarly  happy    . 
Marriages  resulting  from  a  common  weakness 
Independent  spheres  in  marriage. — Effect  on  character 

The  age  of  marriage 

Increased  independence  of  women 


285 
286 
287 
288 
290 
290 
291 
293 


CHAPTER    XV 

SUCCESS 

Success  depends  more  on  character  than  on  intellect       .        .     .  295 
Especially  that  accessible  to  most   men  and  most  conducive 

to  happiness 296 

Strength  of  will,  tact  and  judgment. — Not  always  joined         .    .  296 

Their  combination  a  great  element  of  success       ....  297 

Good  nature .  298 

Tact :  its  nature  and  its  importance 299 

Its  intellectual  and  moral  af&nities 302 

Value  of   good  society  in   cultivating  it. — Newman's  descrip- 
tion of  a  gentleman 303 

Disparities  between  merit  and  success 304 

Success  not  universally  desired     .......  305 


CONTENTS  XV 
CHAPTER    XVI 

TIME 

PAQK 

Bebellion  of  human  nature  against  the  essential  conditions  of 

life 306 

Time  •  the  stuff  of  life ' .    .  307 

Various  ways  of  treating  it 308 

Increased  intensity  of  life 309 

Sleep 310 

Apparent  inequalities  of  time 313 

The  tenure  of  life  not  too  short 314 

Old  age 317 

The  growing  love  of  rest. — How  time  should  be  regarded   .        .  318 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE   END 

Death  terrible  chiefly  through  its  accessories       .        .        .        .319 

Pagan  and  Christian  ideas  about  it 320 

Premature  death 325 

How  easily  the  fear  of  death  is  overcome         .....  326 

The  true  way  of  regarding  it 327 


THE    MAP    OF    LIFE 


CHAPTEE   I 

One  of  the  first  questions  that  must  naturally  occur  to 
every  writer  who  deals  with  the  subject  of  this  book  is, 
what  influence  mere  discussion  and  reasoning  can  have 
in  promoting  the  happiness  of  men.  The  circumstances 
of  our  lives  and  the  dispositions  of  our  characters  mainly 
determine  the  measure  of  happiness  we  enjoy,  and  mere 
argument  about  the  causes  of  happiness  and  unhappiness 
can  do  Httle  to  affect  them.  It  is  impossible  to  read  the 
many  books  that  have  been  written  on  these  subjects 
without  feeling  how  largely  they  consist  of  mere  sounding 
generalities  which  the  smallest  experience  shows  to  be 
perfectly  impotent  in  the  face  of  some  real  and  acute 
sorrow,  and  it  is  equally  impossible  to  obtain  any  serious 
knowledge  of  the  world  without  perceiving  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  happiest  lives  and  characters  are  to  be  / 
found  where  introspection,  self-analysis  and  reasonings 
about  the  good  and  evil  of  life  hold  the  smallest  place. 
Happiness,  indeed,  like  health,  is  one  of  the  things  of 
which  men  rarely  think  except  when  it  is  impaired,  and 
much  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject  has  been  written 
under  the  stress  of  some  great  depression.     Such  writers 

B 


2  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

are  like  the  man  in  Hogarth's  picture  occupying  himself 
in  the  debtors'  prison  with  plans  for  the  payment  of 
the  National  Debt.  There  are  moments  when  all  of  us 
feel  the  force  of  the  words  of  Voltaire :  '  Travaillons 
sans  raisonner,  c'est  le  seul  moyen  de  rendre  la  vie 
supportable.' 

That  there  is  much  truth  in  such  considerations  is 
incontestable,  and  it  is  only  within  a  restricted  sphere 
that  the  province  of  reasoning  extends.  Man  comes  into 
the  world  with  mental  and  moral  characteristics  which 
he  can  only  very  imperfectly  influence,  and  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  external  circumstances  of  his  life  lie 
wholly  or  mainly  beyond  his  control.  At  the  same  time, 
every  one  recognises  the  power  of  skill,  industry  and  perse- 
verance to  modify  surrounding  circumstances  ;  the  power 
of  temperance  and  prudence  to  strengthen  a  naturally 
weak  constitution,  prolong  life  and  diminish  the  chances 
of  disease ;  the  power  of  education  and  private  study  to 
develop,  sharpen  and  employ  to  the  best  advantage  our 
intellectual  faculties.  Every  one  also  recognises  how  large 
a  part  of  the  unhappiness  of  most  men  may  be  directly 
traced  to  their  own  voluntary  and  deliberate  acts.  The 
power  each  man  possesses  in  the  education  and  manage- 
ment of  his  character,  and  especially  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  dispositions  and  tendencies  which  most  largely  con- 
tribute to  happiness,  is  less  recognised  and  is  perhaps  less 
extensive,  but  it  is  not  less  real. 

The  eternal  question  of  free  will  and  determinism 
here  naturally  meets  us,  but  on  such  a  subject  it  is  idle  to 
suppose  that  a  modern  writer  can  do  more  than  define 
the  question  and  state  his  own  side.  The  Determinist 
says  that  the  real  question  is  not  whether  a  man  can  do 
what  he  desires,  but  whether  he  can  do  what  he  does  not 


THE  FREE   WILL  CONTROVERSY  3 

desire ,  whether  the  will  can  act  without  a  motive  ; 
whether  that  motive  can  in  the  last  analysis  be  other 
than  the  strongest  pleasure.  The  illusion  of  free  will,  he 
maintains,  is  only  due  to  the  conflict  of  our  motives. 
Under  many  forms  and  disguises  pleasure  and  pain  have 
an  absolute  empire  over  conduct.  The  will  is  nothing 
more  than  the  last  and  strongest  desire ;  or  it  is  like  a  piece 
of  iron  surrounded  by  magnets  and  necessarily  drawn  by 
the  most  powerful ;  or  (as  has  been  ( ngeniously  imagined) 
like  a  weathercock,  conscious  of  its  own  motion,  but  not 
conscious  of  the  winds  that  are  moving  it.  The  law  of 
compulsory  causation  applies  to  the  world  of  mind  as 
truly  as  to  the  world  of  matter.  Heredity  and  Circum- 
stance make  us  what  we  are.  Our  actions  are  the  inevi- 
table result  of  the  mental  and  moral  constitutions  with 
which  we  came  into  the  world,  operated  on  by  external 
influences. 

The  supporters  of  free  will,  on  the  other  hand,  main- 
tain that  it  is  a  fact  of  consciousness  that  there  is  a  clear 
distinction  between  the  Will  and  the  Desires,  and  that 
although  they  are  closely  connected  no  sound  analysis 
wdll  confuse  them.  Coleridge  ingeniously  compared  their 
relations  to  '  the  co-instantaneous  yet  reciprocal  action  of 
the  air  and  the  vital  energy  of  the  lungs  in  breathing.'  ^ 
If  the  will  is  powerfully  acted  on  by  the  desires,  it  has 
also  in  its  turn  a  power  of  acting  upon  them,  and  it  is  not 
a  mere  slave  to  pleasure  and  pain.  The  supporters  of  this 
view  maintain  that  it  is  a  fact  of  the  plainest  consciousness 
that  we  can  do  things  which  we  do  not  like ;  that  we  can 
suspend  the  force  of  imperious  desires,  resist  the  bias  of 
our  nature,  pursue  for  the  sake  of  duty  the  course  which 
gives  least  pleasure  without  deriving  or  expecting  from 

'  Aids  to  Reflectio7i,  p.  68. 

B    2 


^ 


4  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

it  any  pleasure,  and  select  at  a  given  moment  between 
alternate  courses.  They  maintain  that  when  various 
motives  pass  before  the  mind  the  mind  retains  a  power 
of  choosing  and  judging,  of  accepting  and  rejecting  ; 
that  it  can  by  force  of  reason  or  by  force  of  imagina- 
tion bring  one  motive  into  prominence,  concentrating  its 
attention  on  it  and  thus  intensifying  its  power;  that  it 
has  a  corresponding  power  of  resisting  other  motives, 
driving  them  into  the  background  and  thus  gradually 
diminishing  their  force ;  that  the  will  itself  becomes 
stronger  by  exercise,  as  the  desires  do  by  indulgence.  The 
conflict  between  the  will  and  the  desires,  the  reality  of 
self-restraint  and  the  power  of  Will  to  modify  character, 
are  among  the  most  familiar  facts  of  moral  life.  In  the 
words  of  Burke,  '  It  is  the  prerogative  of  man  to  be  in  a 
great  degree  a  creature  of  his  own  making.'  There  are 
men  whose  whole  lives  are  spent  in  willing  one  thing  and 
desiring  the  opposite,  and  all  morality  depends  upon  the 
supposition  that  we  have  at  least  some  freedom  of  choice 
between  good  and  evil.  '  I  ought,'  as  Kant  says,  neces- 
sarily implies  'I  can.'  The  feeling  of  moral  responsibility 
is  an  essential  part  of  healthy  and  developed  human 
nature,  and  it  inevitably  presupposes  free  will.  The  best 
argument  in  its  favour  is  that  it  is  impossible  really  to 
disbelieve  it.  No  human  being  can  prevent  himself  from 
viewing  certain  acts  with  an  indignation,  shame,  remorse, 
resentment,  gratitude,  enthusiasm,  praise  or  blame,  which 
would  be  perfectly  unmeaning  and  irrational  if  these  acts 
could  not  have  been  avoided.  We  can  have  no  higher 
evidence  on  the  subject  than  is  derived  from  this  fact. 
It  is  impossible  to  explain  the  mystery  of  free  will,  but 
until  a  man  ceases  to  feel  these  emotions  he  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  disbelieving  in  it.     The  feelings  of  all  men  and 


THE  CONSENSUS  OF  MANKIND  6 

the  vocabularies  of  all  languages  attest  the  universality  of 
the  belief. 

Newman,  in  a  well-known  passage  in  his  'Apologia,'  de- 
scribes the  immense  effect  which  the  sentence  of  Augustine, 
*  Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum,'  had  upon  his  opinions 
in  determining  him  to  embrace  the  Church  of  Eome. 
The  force  of  this  consideration  in  relation  to  the  subject 
to  which  Dr.  Newman  refers  does  not  appear  to  have 
great  weight.  It  means  only  that  at  a  time  when  the 
Christian  Church  included  but  a  small  fraction  of  the 
human  race ;  when  all  questions  of  orthodoxy  or  the  re- 
verse were  practically  in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood ; 
when  ignorance,  credulity  and  superstition  were  at  their 
height  and  the  habits  of  independence  and  impartiality 
of  judgment  running  very  low,  and  when  every  kind  of 
violent  persecution  was  directed  against  those  who  dis- 
sented from  the  prevailing  dogmas,  certain  councils  of 
priests  found  it  possible  to  attain  unanimity  on  such  ques- 
tions as  the  two  natures  in  Christ  or  the  relations  of  the 
Persons  in  the  Trinity,  and  to  expel  from  the  Church 
those  who  differed  from  their  views,  and  that  the  once 
formidable  sects  which  held  slightly  different  opinions 
about  these  inscrutable  relations  gradually  faded  away. 
Such  an  unanimity  on  such  subjects  and  attained  by  such 
methods  does  not  appear  to  me  to  carry  with  it  any  over- 
whelming force.  There  are,  however,  a  certain  number 
of  beliefs  that  are  not  susceptible  of  demonstrative  proof, 
and  which  must  always  rest  essentially  on  the  universal 
assent  of  mankind.  Such  is  the  existence  of  the  external 
world.  Such,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  existence  of  a  distinc- 
tion between  right  and  wrong,  different  from  and  higher 
than  the  distinction  between  pleasure  and  pain,  and  sub- 
sisting in  all  human  nature  in  spite  of  great  diversities  of  : 


6  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

opinion  about  the  acts  and  qualities  that  are  comprised  in 
either  category  ;  and  such  also  is  the  kindred  belief  in  a 
self-determining  will.  If  men  contend  that  these  things 
are  mere  illusions  and  that  their  faculties  are  not  to 
be  trusted,  it  will  no  doubt  be  difficult  or  impossible  to 
refute  them;  but  a  scepticism  of  this  kind  has  no  real 
influence  either  on  conduct  or  feeling. 


RELIGION  AND   STOICISM 


CHAPTBE   II 

Men  continually  forget  that  Happiness  is  a  condition  of 
Mind  and  not  a  disposition  of  circumstances,  and  one  of 
the  most  common  of  errors  is  that  of  confusing  happiness 
with  the  means  of  happiness,  sacrificing  the  first  for  the 
attainment  of  the  second.  It  is  the  error  of  the  miser, 
who  begins  by  seeking  money  for  the  enjoyment  it  pro- 
cures and  ends  by  making  the  mere  acquisition  of  money 
his  sole  object,  pursuing  it  to  the  sacrifice  of  all  rational  ends 
and  pleasures.  Circumstances  and  Character  both  contri- 
bute to  Happiness,  but  the  proportionate  attention  paid  to 
one  or  other  of  these  great  departments  not  only  varies 
largely  with  different  individuals,  but  also  with  different 
nations  and  in  different  ages.  Thus  Keligion  acts  mainly 
in  the  formation  of  dispositions,  and  it  is  especially  in  this 
field  that  its  bearing  on  human  happiness  should  be 
judged.  It  influences,  it  is  true,  vastly  and  variously  the 
external  circumstances  of  life,  but  its  chief  power  of  com- 
forting and  supporting  lies  in  its  direct  and  immediate 
action  upon  the  human  soul.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
some  systems  of  philosophy  of  which  Stoicism  is  the  most 
conspicuous.  The  paradox  of  the  Stoic  that  good  and 
evil  are  so  entirely  from  within  that  to  a  wise  man  all 
external  circumstances  are  indifferent,  represents  this  view 
of  life  in  its  extreme  form.  Its  more  moderate  form  can 
hardly  be  better  expressed  than  in  the  saying  of  Dugald 


J 


8  THE  MAP  OF  LITE 

Stewart  that  *  the  great  secret  of  happiness  is  to  study  to 
accommodate  our  own  minds  to  things  external  rather 
than  to  accommodate  things  external  to  ourselves.'  ^  It 
is  eminently  the  characteristic  of  Eastern  nations  to  place 
their  ideals  mainly  in  states  of  mind  or  feeling  rather  than 
in  changes  of  circumstances,  and  in  such  nations  men  are 
much  less  desirous  than  in  European  countries  of  altering 
the  permanent  conditions  of  their  lives. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  tendency  of  those  philosophies 
which  treat  man — his  opinions  and  his  character — essen- 
tially as  the  result  of  circumstances  and  which  aggrandise 
the  influence  of  the  external  world  upon  mankind  is  in  the 
opposite  direction.  All  the  sensational  philosophies  from 
Bacon  and  Locke  to  our  own  day  tend  to  concentrate 
attention  on  the  external  circumstances  and  conditions 
of  happiness.  And  the  same  tendency  will  be  naturally 
found  in  the  most  active,  industrial  and  progressive 
nations ;  where  life  is  very  full  and  busy ;  where  its  com- 
petitions are  most  keen ;  where  scientific  discoveries  are 
rapidly  multiplying  pleasures  or  diminishing  pains  ;  where 
town  life  with  its  constant  hurry  and  change  is  the  most 
prominent.  In  such  spheres  men  naturally  incline  to  seek 
happiness  from  without  rather  than  from  within,  or  in 
other  words  to  seek  it  much  less  by  acting  directly  on  the 
mind  and  character  than  through  the  indirect  method  of 
improved  circumstances. 

English  character  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  is  an 
eminently  objective  one — a  character  in  which  thoughts, 
interests  and  emotions  are  most  habitually  thrown  on 
that  which  is  without.  Introspection  and  self-analysis 
are  not  congenial  to  it.  No  one  can  compare  English  life 
with  life  even  in  the  continental  nations  which  occupy 

1    Active  and,  Moral  Powers,  ii.  312. 


ENGLISH  IDEALS  9 

the  same  rank  in  civilisation  without  perceiving  hov7 
much  less  Englishmen  are  accustomed  either  to  dwell 
upon  their  emotions  or  to  give  free  latitude  to  their 
expression.  Keticence  and  self-restraint  are  the  lessons  / 
most  constantly  inculcated.  The  whole  tone  of  society  ' 
favours  it.  In  times  of  great  sorrow  a  degree  of  shame  is 
attached  to  demonstrations  of  grief  which  in  other  coun- 
tries would  be  deemed  perfectly  natural.  The  disposition 
to  dilate  upon  and  perpetuate  an  old  grief  by  protracted 
mournings,  by  carefully  observed  anniversaries,  by  long 
periods  of  retirement  from  the  world,  is  much  less  common 
than  on  the  Continent  and  it  is  certainly  diminishing. 
The  English  tendency  is  to  turn  away  speedily  from  the 
past,  and  to  seek  consolation  in  new  fields  of  activity. 
Emotions  translate  themselves  speedily  into  action,  and 
they  lose  something  of  their  intensity  by  the  transforma- 
tion. Philanthropy  is  nowhere  more  active  and  more 
practical,  and  religion  has  in  few  countries  a  greater  hold 
on  the  national  life,  but  English  Protestantism  reflects 
very  clearly  the  national  characteristics.  It,  no  doubt, 
like  all  religions,  lays  down  rules  for  the  government  of 
thought  and  feeling,  but  these  are  of  a  very  general 
character.  Pre-eminently  a  regulator  of  conduct,  it  lays 
comparatively  little  stress  upon  the  inner  life.  It  dis- 
courages, or  at  least  neglects  that  minutely  introspective 
habit  of  thought  which  the  confessional  is  so  much  cal- 
culated to  promote,  which  appears  so  prominently  in  the 
writings  of  the  Catholic  Saints,  and  which  finds  its  special 
representation  in  the  mystics  and  the  religious  contem- 
plative orders.  Improved  conduct  and  improved  circum- 
stances are  to  an  English  mind  the  chief  and  almost  the 
only  measures  of  progress. 

That  this  tendency  is  on  the  whole  a  healthy   one,       T 


10  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

1 1,  at  least,  firmly  believe,  but  it  brings  with  it  certain  mani- 
j  fest  limitations  and  somewhat  incapacitates  men  from 
I  judging  other  types  of  character  and  happiness.  The\ 
l^art  that  circumstances  play  in  the  formation  of  our 
characters  is  indeed  very  manifest,  and  it  is  a  humiliating 
truth  that  among  these  circumstances  mere  bodily  con- 
ditions which  we  share  with  the  animals  hold  a  foremost  / 
place.  In  the  long  run  and  to  the  great  majority  of  men/ 
health  is  probably  the  most  important  of  all  the  elements 
of  happiness.  Acute  physical  suffering  or  shattered  health 
will  more  than  counterbalance  the  best  gifts  of  fortune, 
and  the  bias  of  our  nature  and  even  the  processes  of 
our  reasoning  are  largely  influenced  by  physical  con- 
ditions. Hume  has  spoken  of  that  '  disposition  to  see 
the  favourable  rather  than  the  unfavourable  side  of 
things  which  it  is  more  happiness  to  possess  than  to 
be  heir  to  an  estate  of  10,000Z.  a  year ;  '  but  this  gift 
of  a  happy  temperament  is  very  evidently  greatly  due 
to  bodily  conditions.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  well  known 
how  speedily  and  how  powerfully  bodily  ailments  react 
upon  our  moral  natures.  Every  one  is  aware  of  the  morbid 
irritability  that  is  produced  bj^  certain  maladies  of  the 
nerves  or  of  the  brain ;  of  the  deep  constitutional  depression 
which  often  follows  diseases  of  the  liver,  or  prolonged 
sleeplessness  and  other  hypochondriacal  maladies,  and 
which  not  only  deprives  men  of  most  of  their  capacity  of 
enjoyment,  but  also  infallibly  gives  a  colour  and  a  bias  to 
their  reasonings  on  life  ;  of  the  manner  in  which  animal 
passions  as  well  as  animal  spirits  are  affected  by  certain 
well-known  conditions  of  age  and  health.  In  spite  of  the 
*  ccelum  non  animum  mutant '  of  Horace,  few  men  fail  to 
experience  how  different  is  the  range  of  spirits  in  the 
limbo-like  atmosphere  of  a  London  winter  and  beneath 


ACTION   OF   THE   BODY   ON   HAPPINESS  11 

the  glories  of  an  Italian  sky  or  in  the  keen  bracing 
atmosphere  of  the  mountain  side,  and  it  is  equally  appa- 
rent how  differently  we  judge  the  world  when  we  are  jaded 
by  a  long  spell  of  excessive  work  or  refreshed  after  a  night 
of  tranquil  sleep.  Poetry  and  Painting  are  probably  not 
wrong  in  associating  a  certain  bilious  temperament  with 
a  predisposition  to  envy,  or  an  anaemic  or  lymphatic 
temperament  with  a  saintly  life,  and  there  are  well- 
attested  cases  in  which  an  acute  illness  has  fundamen- 
tally altered  characters,  sometimes  replacing  an  habitual 
gloom  by  buoyancy  and  light,^  That  invaluable  gift 
which  enables  some  men  to  cast  aside  trouble  and  turn 
their  thoughts  and  energies  swiftly  and  decisively  into 
new  channels  can  be  largely  strengthened  by  the  action 
of  the  will,  but  according  to  some  physiologists  it  has  a 
well-ascertained  physical  antecedent  in  the  greater  or  less 
contractile  power  of  the  blood-vessels  which  feed  the 
brain  causing  the  flow  of  blood  into  it  to  be  stronger  or 
less  rapid.  If  it  be  true  that  '  a  healthy  mind  in  a  healthy 
body '  is  the  supreme  condition  of  happiness,  it  is  also  true 
that  the  healthy  mind  depends  more  closely  than  we  like 
to  own  on  the  healthy  body.    , 

These'  are  but  a  few  obvious  instances  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  body  acts  upon  happiness.  They  do  not 
mean  that  the  will  is  powerless  in  the  face  of  bodily 
conditions,  but  that  in  the  management  of  character  it 
has  certain  very  definite  predispositions  to  encounter.  In 
reasonings  on  life,  even  more  than  on  other  things,  a  good 
reasoner  will  consider  not  only  the  force  of  the  opposing 
arguments,  but  also  the  bias  to  which  his  own  mind  is 
subject.     To  raise  the  level  of  national  health  is  one  of 

*  Much  curious  information  on  this  subject  will  be  found  in  Cabanis' 
Rapports  du  pliysique  et  du  mcn-al  de  Vhomme. 


12  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  surest  ways  of  raising  the  level  of  national  happiness, 
and  in  estimating  the  value  of  different  pleasures  many 
V7hich  considered  in  themselves  might  appear  to  rank 
low  upon  the  scale,  will  rank  high,  if  in  addition  to 
the  immediate  and  transient  enjoyment  they  procure, 
they  contribute  to  form  a  strong  and  healthy  body.  No 
branch  of  legislation  is  more  really  valuable  than  that 
which  is  occupied  with  the  health  of  the  people,  whether 
it  takes  the  form  of  encouraging  the  means  by  which 
remedies  may  be  discovered  and  diffused;  or  of  extir- 
pating by  combined  efforts  particular  diseases  or  of 
securing  that  the  mass  of  labour  in  the  community  should 
as  far  as  possible  be  carried  on  under  sound  sanitary 
conditions.  Fashion  also  can  do  much,  both  for  good 
and  ill.  It  exercises  over  great  multitudes  an  almost 
absolute  empire,  regulating  their  dress,  their  education, 
their  hours,  their  amusements,  their  food,  their  scale  of 
expenditure  ;  determining  the  qualities  to  which  they 
principally  aspire,  the  work  in  which  they  may  engage, 
and  even  the  form  of  beauty  which  they  most  cultivate. 
It  is  happy  for  a  nation  when  this  mighty  influence  is 
employed  in  encouraging  habits  of  life  which  are  bene- 
ficial or  at  least  not  gravely  prejudicial  to  health.  Nor 
is  any  form  of  individual  education  more  really  valuable 
than  that  which  teaches  the  main  conditions  of  a  healthy 
life  and  forms  those  habits  of  temperance  and  self- 
restraint  that  are  most  likely  to  attain  it.     /^9 

With  its  great  recuperative  powers  Youth  can  do  VTith 
apparent  impunity  many  things  which  in  later  life  bring 
a  speedy  Nemesis ;  but  on  the  other  hand  Youth  is  pre- 
eminently the  period  when  habits  and  tastes  are  formed, 
and  the  yoke  which  is  then  lightly,  willingly,  wantonly 
assumed  will  in  after  years  acquire  a  crushing  weight.   Few 


SLIGHT   CAUSES   OF   LIFE   FAILURES  13 

things  are  more  striking  than  the  levity  of  the  motives,  the 
feebleness  of  the  impulses  under  which  in  youth  fatal  steps 
are  taken  which  bring  with  them  a  weakened  life  and  often 
an  early  grave.  Smoking  in  manhood,  when  practised  in 
moderation,  is  a  very  innocent  and  probably  beneficent 
practice,  but  it  is  well  known  how  deleterious  it  is  to 
young  boys,  and  how  many  of  them  have  taken  to  it 
through  no  other  motive  than  a  desire  to  appear  older 
than  they  are — that  surest  of  all  signs  that  we  are  very- 
young.  How  often  have  the  far  more  pernicious  habits 
of  drinking,  or  gambling,  or  frequenting  corrupt  society 
been  acquired  through  a  similar  motive,  or  through  the 
mere  desire  to  enjoy  the  charm  of  a  forbidden  pleasure  or 
to  stand  well  with  "some  dissipated  companions  !  How 
large  a  proportion  of  lifelong  female  debility  is  due  to  an 
early  habit  of  tight  lacing,  springing  only  from  the  silliest 
vanity  !  How  many  lives  have  been  sacrificed  through 
the  careless  recklessness  which  refused  to  take  the  trouble 
of  changing  wet  clothes  !  How  many  have  been  shattered 
and  shortened  by  excess  in  things  which  in  moderation 
are  harmless,  useful,  or  praiseworthy — by  the  broken 
blood-vessel,  due  to  excess  in  some  healthy  athletic  exer- 
cise or  game  ;  by  the  ruined  brain  overstrained  in  order 
to  win  some  paltry  prize  !  It  is  melancholy  to  observe 
how  many  lives  have  been  broken  down,  ruined  or  cor- 
rupted in  attempts  to  realise  some  supreme  and  unattain- 
able desire  ;  through  the  impulse  of  overmastering  passion, 
of  powerful  and  perhaps  irresistible  temptation.  It  is 
still  sadder  to  observe  how  large  a  proportion  of  the 
failures  of  life  may  be  ultimately  traced  to  the  most 
insignificant  causes  and  might  have  been  avoided  with- 
out any  serious  effort  either  of  intellect  or  will. 

The  success  with  which  medicine  and  sanitary  science 


14  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

have  laboured  to  prolong  life,  to  extirpate  or  diminish 
different  forms  of  disease  and  to  alleviate  their  conse- 
quences is  abundantly  proved.  In  all  civilised  countries 
the  average  of  life  has  been  raised,  and  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  not  only  old  age  but  also  active, 
useful,  enjoyable  old  age  has  become  much  more  frequent. 
It  is  true  that  the  gain  to  human  happiness  is  not  quite 
as  great  as  might  at  first  sight  be  imagined.  Death  is 
least  sad  when  it  comes  in  infancy  or  in  extreme  old  age, 
and  the  increased  average  of  life  is  largely  due  to  the 
great  diminution  in  infant  mortality,  which  is  in  truth  a 
very  doubtful  blessing.  If  extreme  old  age  is  a  thing  to 
be  desired,  it  is  perhaps  chiefly  because  it  usually  implies 
a  constitution  which  gives  many  earlier  years  of  robust 
and  healthy  life.  But  with  all  deductions  the  triumphs 
of  sanitary  reform  as  well  as  of  medical  science  are 
perhaps  the  brightest  page  in  the  history  of  our  century. 
Some  of  the  measures  which  have  proved  most  useful  can 
only  be  effected  at  some  sacrifice  of  individual  freedom 
and  by  widespread  coercive  sanitary  regulations,  and  are 
thus  more  akin  to  despotism  than  to  free  government. 
How  different  would  have  been  the  condition  of  the  world, 
and  how  far  greater  would  have  been  the  popularity  of 
strong  monarchy  if  at  the  time  when  such  a  form  of 
government  generally  prevailed  rulers  had  had  the 
intelligence  to  put  before  them  the  improvement  of  the 
health  and  the  prolongation  of  the  lives  of  their  subjects 
as  the  main  object  of  their  policy  rather  than  military 
'  r  glory  or  the  acquisition  of  territory  or  mere  ostentatious 
and  selfish  display ! 

There  is,  however,  some  reason  to  believe  that  the 
diminution  of  disease  and  the  prolongation  of  average 
human  life  are  not  necessarily  or  even  generally  accom- 


INFLUENCES  LOWERING  HEALTH  15 

panied  by  a  corresponding  improvement  in  general  health. 
'Acute  diseases,'  says  an  excellent  judge,  'which  are  i 
eminently  fatal  prevail,  on  the  contrary,  in  a  population  j 
where  the  standard  of  health  is  high.  .  .  .  Thus  a  high 
rate  of  mortality  may  often  be  observed  in  a  community 
where  the  number  of  persons  affected  with  disease  is 
small,  and  on  the  other  hand  general  physical  depression 
may  concur  with  the  prevalence  of  chronic  maladies  and 
yet  be  unattended  with  a  great  proportion  of  deaths.'  ^ 
An  anaemic  population,  free  from  severe  illness,  but  living 
habitually  at  a  low  level  of  health  and  with  the  depressed 
spirits  and  feeble  capacity  of  enjoyment  which  such  a 
condition  produces,  is  far  from  an  ideal  state,  and  there  is 
much  reason  to  fear  that  this  type  is  an  increasing  one. 
Many  things  in  modern  life,  among  which  ill-judged 
philanthropy  and  ill-judged  legislation  have  no  small  part, 
contribute  to  produce  it,  but  two  causes  probably  domi- 
nate over  all  others.  The  one  is  to  be  found  in  sanitary 
science  itself,  which  enables  great  numbers  of  consti- 
tutionally weak  children  who  in  other  days  would  have 
died  in  infancy  to  grow  up  and  marry  and  propagate  a 
feeble  offspring.  The  other  is  the  steady  movement  of 
population  from  the  country  to  the  towns,  which  is  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  features  of  modern  civilisation. 
These  two  influences  inevitably  and  powerfully  tend  to 
depress  the  vitality  of  a  nation,  and  by  doing  so  to  lower 
the  level  of  animal  spirits  which  is  one  of  the  most 
essential  elements  of  happiness.  Whether  our  improved 
standards  of  living  and  our  much  greater  knowledge  of 
sanitary  conditions  altogether  counteract  them  is  very 
doubtful. 

In  this  as  in  most  questions  affecting  life  there  are 

'  Kay's  Moral  and  Physical  Condition  of  the  Working  Classes,  p.  75. 


16  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

opposite  dangers  to  be  avoided,  and  wisdom  lies  mainly 
in  a  JTist  sense  of  proportion  and  degree.  That  sanitary- 
reform,  promoted  by  Governments,  has  on  the  whole  been 
a  great  blessing  seems  to  me  scarcely  open  to  reasonable 
question,  but  many  of  the  best  judges  are  of  opinion  that 
it  may  easily  be  pushed  to  dangerous  extremes.  Few 
'things  are  more  curious  than  to  observe  how  rapidly 
during  the  past  generation  the  love  of  individual  liberty 
has  declined ;  how  contentedly  the  English  race  are 
submitting  great  departments  of  their  lives  to  a  web  of 
regulations  restricting  and  encircling  them.  Each  in- 
dividual case  must  be  considered  on  its  merits,  and  few 
persons  will  now  deny  that  the  right  of  adult  men  and 
women  to  regulate  the  conditions  of  their  own  work  and 
to  determine  the  risks  that  they  will  assume  may  be 
wisely  infringed  in  more  cases  than  the  Manchester  School 
would  have  admitted.  At  the  same  time  the  marked 
tendency  of  this  generation  to  extend  the  stringency 
and  area  of  coercive  legislation  in  the  fields  of  industry 
and  sanitary  reform  is  one  that  should  be  carefully 
watched.  Its  exaggerations  may  in  more  ways  than 
one  greatly  injure  the  very  classes  it  is  intended  to 
benefit. 

A  somewhat  corresponding  statement  may  be  made 
about  individual  sanitary  education.  It  is,  as  I  have  said, 
a  matter  of  the  most  vital  importance  that  we  should 
acquire  in  youth  the  knowledge  and  the  habits  that  lead 
to  a  healthy  life.  The  main  articles  of  the  sanitary  creed 
are  few  and  simple.  Moderation  and  self-restraint  in  all 
things — an  abundance  of  exercise,  of  fresh  air,  and  of  cold 
water — a  sufficiency  of  steady  work  not  carried  to  excess — 
occasional  change  of  habits  and  abstinence  from  a  few 
things  which  are  manifestly  injurious  to  health,  are  the 


/ 


UNDUE  CARE  FOR   HEALTH  17 

cardinal  rules  to  be  observed.     In  the  great  lottery  of  life, 
men  who  have  observed  them  all  may  be  doomed  to  ill- 
ness, weak  vitality  and  early  death,  but  they  at  least  add 
enormously  to   the   chances  of   a    strong   and   full    life. 
The  parent  will  need  further  knowledge  for  the  care  of  his 
children,  but  for  self-guidance  little  more  is  required,  and 
with  early  habits,  an  observance  of  the  rules  of  health 
.  becomes  almost  instinctive  and  unconscious.    But  while  no 
kind  of  education  is  more  transcendently  important  than 
this,  it  is  not  unfrequently  carried  to  an  extreme  which 
defeats  its  own  purpose.     The  habit  that  so  often  grows 
upon  men  with  slight  chronic  maladies,  or  feeble  tempera- 
ment, or  idle  lives,  of  making  their  own  health  and  their 
own  ailments  the  constant  subject  of  their  thoughts  soon 
becomes  a  disease  very  fatal  to  happiness  and  positively 
injurious  to  health.     It  is  well  known  how  in  an  epidemic 
the  panic-stricken  are  most  liable  to  the  contagion,  and 
the  life  of  the  habitual  valetudinarian  tends  promptly  to 
depress  the  nerve  energy  which  provides  the  true  stamina 
of  health.     In  the  words  of  an  eminent  physician,  '  It  is 
not   by  being  anxious  in  an  inordinate  or  unduly  fussy 
fashion  that  men  can  hope  to  live  long  and  well.     The  best 
way  to  live  well  is  to  work  well.     Good  work  is  the  daily 
test  and  safeguard  of  personal  health.  .  .  .  The  practical 
aim  should  be  to  live  an  orderly  and  natural  life.     We 
were  not  intended  to  pick  our  way  through  the  world 
trembling  at  every  step.  ...  It  is  worse  than  vain,  for  it 
encourages  and  increases  the  evil  it  attempts  to  relieve.  .  .  . 
I  firmly  believe  one-half  of  the  confirmed  invalids  of  the 
day  could  be  cured  of  their  maladies  if  they  were  com- 
pelled to  live  busy  and  active  lives  and  had  no  time  to  fret 
over  their  miseries.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most  seductive  and 
mischievous  of  errors  in  self-management  is  the  practice 

c 


18  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

of  giving  way  to  inertia,  weakness  and  depression.  .  .  . 
Those  who  desire  to  live  should  settle  this  well  in  their 
minds,  that  nerve  power  is  the  force  of  life  and  that  the 
will  has  a  wondrously  strong  and  direct  influence  over  the 
body  through  the  brain  and  the  nervous  system.'  ^ 

'  Mortimer  Granville's  How  to  Make  the  Best  of  Life. 


WORK  ESSENTIAL   TO   HAPPINESS  19 


CHAPTEK   III 

Before  entering  into  a  more  particular  account  of  the 
chief  elements  of  a  happy  life  it  may  be  useful  to  devote 
a  few  pages  to  some  general  considerations  on  the  subject. 

One  of  the  first  and  most  clearly  recognised  rules  to  be  \ 
observed  is  that  happiness  is  most  likely  to  be  attained  when  \ 
it  is  not  the  direct  object  of  pursuit.  In  early  youth  we  are 
accustomed  to  divide  life  broadly  into  work  and  play,  re- 
garding the  first  as  duty  or  necessity  and  the  second  as 
pleasure.  One  of  the  great  differences  between  childhood 
and  manhood  is  that  we  come  to  like  our  work  more  than 
our  play.  It  becomes  to  us  if  not  the  chief  pleasure  at  least 
the  chief  interest  of  our  lives,  and  even  when  it  is  not  this, 
an  essential  condition  of  our  happiness.  Few  lives  pro- 
duce so  little  happiness  as  those  that  are  aimless  and 
unoccupied.  Apart  from  all  considerations  of  right  and 
wrong,  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  a  happy  life  is  that  it 
should  be  a  full  and  busy  one,  directed  to  the  attainment 
of  aims  outside  ourselves.  Anxiety  and  Ennui  are  the  r 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  on  which  the  bark  of  human  happi- 
ness is  most  commonly  wrecked.  If  a  life  of  luxurious 
idleness  and  selfish  ease  in  some  measure  saves  men  from 
the  first  danger,  it  seldom  fails  to  bring  with  it  the  second. 
No  change  of  scene,  no  multiplicity  of  selfish  pleasures 
will  in  the  long  run  enable  them  to  escape  it.     As  Carlyle 

c  2 


20  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

says,  '  The  restless,  gnawing  ennui  which  Hke  a  dark,  dim 
ocean  flood,  communicating  with  the  Phlegethons  and 
Stygian  deeps,  begirdles  every  human  Hfe  so  guided — is  it 
not  the  painful  cry  even  of  that  imprisoned  heroism  ?  .  .  . 
You  ask  for  happiness.  ''  Oh  give  me  happiness,"  and  they 
hand  you  ever  new  varieties  of  covering  for  the  skin,  ever 
new  kinds  of  supply  for  the  digestive  apparatus.  .  .  .  Well, 
rejoice  in  your  upholsteries  and  cookeries  if  so  be  they  will 
make  you  "  happy."  Let  the  varieties  of  them  be  con- 
tinual and  innumerable.  In  all  things  let  perpetual  change, 
if  that  is  a  perpetual  blessing  to  you,  be  your  portion 
instead  of  mine.  Incur  the  prophet's  curse  and  in  all 
things  in  this  sublunary  world  ''  make  yourselves  like  unto 
a  wheel."  Mount  into  your  railways  ;  whirl  from  place 
to  place  at  the  rate  of  fifty  or  if  you  like  of  five  hundred 
miles  an  hour ;  you  cannot  escape  from  that  inexorable, 
all-encircling  ocean  moan  of  ennui.  No  ;  if  you  could 
mount  to  the  stars  and  do  yacht  voyages  under  the  belts 
of  Jupiter  or  stalk  deer  on  the  ring  of  Saturn  it  would 
still  begirdle  you.  You  cannot  escape  from  it ;  you  can 
but  change  your  place  in  it  without  solacement  except  one 
moment's.  That  prophetic  Sermon  from  the  Deeps  v/ill 
continue  with  you  till  you  wisely  interpret  it  and  do  it  or 
else  till  the  Crack  of  Doom  swallow  it  and  you.'  ^ 

It  needs  but  a  few  years  of  life  experience  to  realise 
the  profound  truth  of  this  passage.  An  ideal  life  would 
be  furnished  with  abundant  work  of  a  kind  that  is  con- 
genial both  to  our  intellects  and  our  characters  and  that 
brings  with  it  much  interest  and  little  anxiety.  Few  of 
us  can  command  this.  Most  men's  work  is  largely  de- 
termined for  them  by  circumstances,  though  in  the  guidance 
of  life  there  are  many  alternatives  and  much  room  for 

*  Latter-day  Paviphlets :  *  Jesuitism.' 


A   MAXIM   OF  ARISTOTLE  21 

skilful  pilotage.  But  the  first  great  rule  is  that  we  must 
do  something — that  life  must  have  a  purpose  and  an 
aim — that  work  should  be  not  merely  occasional  and 
spasmodic,  but  steady  and  continuous.  Pleasure  is  a  \ 
jewel  which  will  only  retain  its  lustre  when  it  is  in  a  setting 
of  work,  and  a  vacant  life  is  one  of  the  worst  of  pains, 
though  the  islands  of  leisure  that  stud  a  crowded,  well- 
occupied  life  may  be  among  the  things  to  which  we  look 
back  with  the  greatest  delight. 

Another  great  truth  is  conveyed  in  the  saying  of 
Aristotle  that  a  wise  man  will  make  it  his  aim  rather 
to  avoid  suffering  than  to  attain  pleasure.  Men  can  in 
reality  do  very  little  to  mitigate  the  force  of  the  great 
bereavements  and  the  other  graver  calamities  of  life.  All 
our  systems  of  philosophy  and  reasoning  are  vain  when 
confronted  with  them.  Innate  temperament  which  we 
cannot  greatly  change  determines  whether  we  sink 
crushed  beneath  the  blow  or  possess  the  buoyancy  that 
can  restore  health  to  our  natures.  The  conscious  and 
deliberate  pursuit  of  pleasure  is  attended  by  many  decep- 
tions and  illusions,  and  rarely  leads  to  lasting  happiness. 
But  we  can  do  very  much  by  prudence,  self-restraint  and 
intelligent  regulation  so  to  manage  life  as  to  avoid  a  large 
proportion  of  its  calamities  and  at  the  same  time  by  pre- 
serving the  affections  pure  and  undimmed,  by  diversifying 
interests  and  forming  active  habits,  to  combat  its  tedium 
and  despondency. 

Another  truth  is  that  both  the  greatest  pleasures  and  the 
keenest  pains  of  life  lie  much  more  in  those  humbler  spheres 
which  are  accessible  to  all  than  on  the  rare  pinnacles  to 
which  only  the  most  gifted  or  the  most  fortunate  can 
attain.  It  would  probably  be  found  upon  examination 
that  Jmost  men  who  have  devoted  their  lives  successfully 


22  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

to  great  labours  and  ambitions  and   who  have  received 
the  most  splendid  gifts  from  Fortune  have  nevertheless 
found  their   chief   pleasure  in  things  unconnected  with 
their  main    pursuits  and  generally  within  the   reach   of 
common  men.     Domestic  pleasures,  pleasures  of  scenery, 
pleasures  of  reading,  pleasures  of  travel  or  of  sport  have 
been   the   highest  enjoyment  of  men  of  great  ambition, 
intellect,  wealth  and  position.     There  is  a  curious  passage 
in  Lord  Althorp's  Life  in  which  that  most  popular  and 
successful  statesman  towards  the  close  of  his  long  parlia- 
mentary life  expressed  his  emphatic  conviction  that  '  the 
thing  that  gave  him  the  greatest  pleasure  in  the  world ' 
was  '  to  see  sporting  dogs  hunt.'  ^     I  can  myself  recollect 
going  over  a  country  place  with  an  old  member  of  Parlia- 
ment who  had  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  nearly 
fifty   years   of   the   most   momentous   period  of  modern 
English  history.     If  questioned  he  could  tell  about  the 
stirring  scenes  of  the  great   Eeform  Bill  of  1832,  but  it 
was  curious  to  observe  how  speedily  and  inevitably  he 
passed  from  such  matters  to  the  history  of  the  trees  on 
his  estate  which  he  had   planted  and  watched  at  every 
stage  of  their  growth,  and  how  evidently  in  the  retrospect 
of   life   it  was  to  these  things  and  not  to  the  incidents 
of  a  long  parliamentary  career  that  his  affections  natur- 
ally turned.     I  once  asked  an  illustrious  public  man  who 
had  served  his  country  with  brilliant   success   in  many 
lands,  and  who  was  spending  the  evening  of  his  life  as 
an  active  country  gentleman  in  a  place  which  he  dearly 
loved,  whether  he  did  not  find  this  sphere  too  contracted 
for  his  happiness.     *  Never  for  a  day,'  he  answered ;  *  and 
in  every  country  where  I  have  been,  in  every  post  which 
I  have   filled,    the    thought    of   this   place   has   always 
*  Le  Marchant's  Life  of  AUhorp,  p.  143. 


THE   GEEATEST  PAINS  AND  PLEASURES  23 

been  at  the  back  of  my  mind.'  A  great  writer  who  had 
devoted  almost  his  whole  life  to  one  gigantic  work,  and 
to  his  own  surprise  brought  it  at  last  to  a  successful 
end,  sadly  observed  that  amid  the  congratulations  that 
poured  in  to  him  from  every  side  he  could  not  help  feeling 
when  he  analysed  his  own  emotions  how  tepid  was  the 
satisfaction  which  such  a  triumph  could  give  him,  and 
what  much  more  vivid  gratification  he  had  come  to  take 
in  hearing  the  approaching  steps  of  some  little  children 
whom  he  had  taught  to  love  him. 

It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  human  nature  that  the 
things  that  are  most  struggled  for  and  the  things  that  are 
most  envied  are  not  those  which  give  either  the  most 
intense  or  the  most  unmixed  joy.  Ambition  is  the  luxury 
of  the  happy.  It  is  sometimes,  but  more  rarely,  the  con- 
solation and  distraction  of  the  wretched  ;  but  most  of 
those  who  have  trodden  its  paths  if  they  deal  honestly 
with  themselves  will  acknowledge  that  the  gravest  dis- 
appointments of  public  life  dwindle  into  insignificance 
compared  with  the  poignancy  of  suffering  endured  at  the 
deathbed  of  a  wife  or  of  a  child,  and  that  within  the  small 
circle  of  a  family  life  they  have  found  more  real  happiness 
than  the  applause  of  nations  could  ever  give. 

Look  down,  look  down  from  your  glittering  heights 

And  tell  us,  ye  sons  of  glory. 
The  joys  and  the  pangs  of  your  eagle  flights 

The  triumph  that  crowned  the  story, 

The  rapture  that  thrilled  when  the  goal  was  won 

The  goal  of  a  life's  desire ; 
And  a  voice  repUed  from  the  setting  sun, 

Nay,  the  dearest  and  best  lies  nigher. 

How  oft  in  such  hours  our  fond  thoughts  stray 

To  the  dream  of  two  idle  lovers ; 
To  the  young  wife's  kiss  ;  to  the  child  at  play 

Or  the  grave  which  the  long  grass  covers ! 


24  THE  MAP  OF   LIFE 

And  little  we'd  reck  of  power  or  gold, 

And  of  all  life's  vain  endeavour, 
If  the  heart  could  glow  as  it  glowed  of  old. 

And  if  youth  could  abide  for  ever. 

Another  consideration  in  the  cultivation  of  happiness 
is  the  importance  of  acquiring  the  habit  of  reahsing  our 
blessings  while  they  last.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  facts  of 
human  nature  that  we  commonly  only  learn  their  value  by 
their  loss.  This,  as  I  have  already  noticed,  is  very  evidently 
the  case  vdth  health.  By  the  laws  of  our  being  we  are 
almost  unconscious  of  the  action  of  our  bodily  organs  as 
long  as  they  are  working  well.  It  is  only  when  they  are  de- 
ranged, obstructed  or  impaired  that  our  attention  becomes 
concentrated  upon  them.  In  consequence  of  this  a  state 
of  perfect  health  is  rarely  fully  appreciated  until  it  is  lost 
and  during  a  short  period  after  it  has  been  regained. 
Gray  has  described  the  new  sensation  of  pleasure  which 
convalescence  gives  in  well-known  lines  : 

See  the  wretch  who  long  has  toss't 

On  the  thorny  bed  of  pain, 
At  length  repair  his  vigour  lost 

And  breathe  and  walk  again  ; 
The  meanest  floweret  of  the  vale. 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale. 

The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 

To  him  are  opening  Paradise. 

And  what  is  true  of  health  is  true  of  other  things.  It 
is  only  when  some  calamity  breaks  the  calm  tenor  of  our 
ways  and  deprives  us  of  some  gift  of  fortune  we  have  long 
enjoyed  that  we  feel  how  great  was  the  value  of  what 
we  have  lost.  There  are  times  in  the  lives  of  most  of 
us  when  we  would  have  given  all  the  world  to  be  as 
we  were  but  yesterday,  though  that  yesterday  had  passed 


REALISATION   OF  PRESENT   GOOD  25 

over  us  unappreciated  and  unenjoyed.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
our  perception  of  this  contrast  brings  with  it  a  lasting 
and  salutary  result.  In  the  medicine  of  Nature  a  chronic 
and  abiding  disquietude  or  morbidness  of  temperament  is 
often  cured  by  some  keen  though  more  transient  sorrow 
which  violently  changes  the  current  of  our  thoughts  and 
imaginations. 

The  difference  between  knowledge  and  realisation  is 
one  of  the  facts  of  our  nature  that  are  most  worthy  of  our 
attention.  Every  human  mind  contains  great  masses  of 
inert,  passive,  undisputed  knowledge  which  exercise  no 
real  influence  on  thought  or  character  till  something 
occurs  which  touches  our  imagination  and  quickens  this 
knowledge  into  activity.  Very  few  things  contribute  so 
much  to  the  happiness  of  life  as  a  constant  realisation  of 
the  blessings  we  enjoy.  The  difference  between  a  natu- 
rally contented  and  a  naturally  discontented  nature  is  one 
of  the  marked  differences  of  innate  temperament,  but  we 
can  do  much  to  cultivate  that  habit  of  dwelling  on  the 
benefits  of  our  lot  which  converts  acquiescence  into  a 
more  positive  enjoyment.  Eeligion  in  this  field  does 
much,  for  it  inculcates  thanksgiving  as  well  as  prayer, 
gratitude  for  the  present  and  the  past  as  well  as  hope  for 
the  future.  Among  secular  influences,  contrast  and  com- 
parison have  the  greatest  value.  Some  minds  are  always 
looking  on  the  fortunes  that  are  above  them  and  com- 
paring their  own  penury  with  the  opulence  of  others. 
A  wise  nature  will  take  an  opposite  course  and  will  culti- 
vate the  habit  of  looking  rather  at  the  round  of  the  ladder 
of  fortune  which  is  below  our  own  and  realising  the  count- 
less points  in  which  our  lot  is  better  than  that  of  others. 
As  Dr.  Johnson  says,  '  Few  are  placed  in  a  situation  so 
gloomy  and  distressful  as  not  to  see  every  day  beings  yet 


26  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

more  forlorn  and  miserable  from  whom  they  may  learn 
to  rejoice  in  their  own  lot.' 

The  consolation  men  derive  amid  their  misfortunes 
from  reflecting  upon  the  still  greater  misfortunes  of  others 
and  thus  lightening  their  own  by  contrast  is  a  topic  which 
must  be  delicately  used,  but  when  so  used  it  is  not  wrong 
and  it  often  proves  very  efficacious.     Perhaps  the  pleasure 
La  Eochefoucauld  pretends  that  men  take  in  the  misfor- 
tunes of  their  best  friends,  if  it  is  a  real  thing,  is  partly 
due  to  this  consideration,  as  the  feeling  of  pity  which  is 
inspired  by  some  sudden  death  or  great  trouble  falling  on 
others  is  certainly  not  wholly  unconnected  with  the  reali- 
sation that  such  calamities  might  fall  upon  ourselves.     It 
is  worthy  of   notice,  however,  that  while  all   moralists 
recognise  content  as  one  of  the  chief  ingredients  of  happi- 
ness, some  of  the  strongest  influences  of  modern  industrial 
civilisation  are  antagonistic  to  it.     The  whole  theory  of 
progress  as  taught  by  Political  Economy  rests  upon  the 
importance  of  creating  wants  and  desires  as  a  stimulus  to 
exertion.     There   are   countries,   especially   in    Southern 
climates,  where  the  wants  of  men  are  very  few,  and  where 
as  long  as  those  wants  are  satisfied  men  will  live  a  care- 
less and  contented  life,  enjoying  the  present,  thinking  very 
little  of  the  future.     Whether  the  sum  of  enjoyment  in 
such  a  population  is  really  less  than  in  our  more  advanced 
civilisation  is  at  least  open  to  question.     It  is  a  remark 
of  Schopenhauer  that  the  Idyll,  which  is  the  only  form 
of  poetry  specially  devoted  to  the  description  of  human 
felicity,  always  paints  life  in  its  simplest  and  least  elabo- 
rated  form,   and   he   sees  in   this  an   illustration   of  his 
doctrine  that  the  greatest  happiness  will  be  found  in  the 
simplest  and  even  most  uniform  life  provided  it  escapes 
the  evil  of  ennui.     The  political  economist,  however,  will 


CONTENT  AND   PROGEESS  27 

pronounce  the  condition  of  such  a  people  as  I  have  de- 
scribed a  deplorable  one,  and  in  order  to  raise  them  his 
first  task  will  be  to  infuse  into  them  some  discontent  with 
their  lot,  to  persuade  them  to  multiply  their  wants  and 
to  aspire  to  a  higher  standard  of  comfort,  to  a  fuller  and  a 
larger  existence.  A  discontent  with  existing  circumstances 
is  the  chief  source  of  a  desire  to  improve  them,  and  this 
desire  is  the  mainspring  of  progress.  In  this  theory  of 
life,  happiness  is  sought  not  in  content,  but  in  improved 
circumstances,  in  the  development  of  new  capacities  of 
enjoyment,  in  the  pleasure  which  active  existence  naturally 
gives.  To  maintain  in  their  due  proportion  in  our  nature 
the  spirit  of  content  and  the  desire  to  improve,  to  combine 
a  realised  appreciation  of  the  blessings  we  enjoy  with  a 
healthy  and  well-regulated  ambition  is  no  easy  thing,  but 
it  is  the  problem  which  all  who  aspire  to  a  perfect  life 
should  set  before  themselves.  In  medio  tutissimus  ibis  is 
eminently  true  of  the  cultivation  of  character,  and  some 
of  its  best  elements  become  pernicious  in  their  extremes. 
Thus  prudent  forethought,  which  is  one  of  the  first  con- 
ditions of  a  successful  life,  may  easily  degenerate  into  that 
most  miserable  state  of  mind  in  which  men  are  perpetu- 
ally anticipating  and  dwelling  upon  the  uncertain  dangers 
and  evils  of  an  uncertain  future.  How  much  indeed  of 
the  happiness  and  misery  of  men  may  be  included  under 
those  two  words,  realisation  and  anticipation  ! 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  Eudsemometer  measuring 
with  accuracy  the  degrees  of  happiness  realised  by  men 
in  different  ages,  under  different  circumstances  and  with 
different  characters.  Perhaps  if  such  a  thing  existed  it 
might  tend  to  discourage  us  by  showing  that  diversities 
and  improvements  of  circumstances  affect  real  happiness 
in  a  smaller  degree  than  we  are  accustomed  to  imagine. 


28  THE   MAV  OF  LIFE 

Our  nature  accommodates  itself  speedily  to  improved 
circumstances,  and  they  cease  to  give  positive  pleasure 
while  their  loss  is  acutely  painful.  Advanced  civilisation 
brings  with  it  countless  and  inestimable  benefits,  but  it 
also  brings  with  it  many  forms  of  suffering  from  which 
a  ruder  existence  is  exempt;  there  is  some  reason  to 
believe  that  it  is  usually  accompanied  with  a  lower  range 
of  animal  spirits,  and  it  is  certainly  accompanied  with  an 
increased  sensitiveness  to  pain.  Some  philosophers  have 
contended  that  this  is  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  It 
is  difficult  to  believe  so,  as  the  whole  object  of  human 
effort  is  to  make  it  a  better  one.  But  the  success  of  that 
effort  is  more  apparent  in  the  many  terrible  forms  of 
human  suffering  which  it  has  abolished  or  diminished 
than  in  the  higher  level  of  positive  happiness  that  has 
been  attained. 


RELATIONS   OF   MORALS   TO   HAPPINESS  29 


'  CHAPTEE   IV 

Though  the  close  relationship  that  subsists  between 
morals  and  happiness  is  universally  acknowledged,  I  do 
not  belong  to  the  school  which  believes  that  pleasure  and 
pain,  either  actual  or  anticipated,  is  the  only  motive  by 
which  the  human  will  can  be  governed ;  that  virtue 
resolves  itself  ultimately  into  well-considered  interest  and 
finds  its  ultimate  reason  in  the  happiness  of  those  who 
practise  it ;  that  '  all  our  virtues,'  as  La  Eochefoucauld  ' 
has  said,  '  end  in  self-love  as  the  rivers  in  the  sea.'  Such 
a  proverb  as  '  Honesty  is  the  best  policy '  represents  no 
doubt  a  great  truth,  though  it  has  been  well  said  that  no 
man  is  really  honest  who  is  only  honest  through  this 
motive,  and  though  it  is  very  evident  that  it  is  by  no 
means  an  universal  truth  but  depends  largely  upon 
changing  and  precarious  conditions  of  laws,  police,  public 
opinion  and  individual  circumstances.  But  in  the  higher 
realms  of  morals  the  coincidence  of  happiness  and  virtue 
is  far  more  doubtful.  It  is  certainly  not  true  that  the 
highest  nature  is  necessarily  or  even  naturally  the 
happiest.  Paganism  has  produced  no  more  perfect  type 
than  the  profoundly  pathetic  figure  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
while  Christianity  finds  its  ideal  in  one  who  was  known 
as  the  '  Man  of  Sorrows.'  The  conscience  of  Mankind 
has  ever  recognised  self-sacrifice  as  the  supreme  element 
of  virtue,  and  self-sacrifice  is  never  real  when  it  is  only 

i 


80  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

the  exchange  of  a  less  happiness  for  a  greater  one.  No 
moral  chemistry  can  transmute  the  worship  of  Sorrow, 
which  Goethe  described  as  the  essence  of  Christianity, 
into  the  worship  of  happiness,  and  probably  with  most 
men  health  and  temperament  play  a  far  larger  part  in 
the  real  happiness  of  their  lives  than  any  of  the  higher 
virtues.  The  satisfaction  of  accomplished  duty  which 
some  moralists  place  among  the  chief  pleasures  of  life  is 
a  real  thing  in  as  far  as  it  saves  men  from  internal  re- 
proaches, but  it  is  probable  that  it  is  among  the  worst 
men  that  pangs  of  conscience  are  least  dreaded,  and  it  is 
certainly  not  among  the  best  men  that  they  are  least  felt. 
Conscience,  indeed,  when  it  is  very  sensitive  and  very 
lofty,  is  far  more  an  element  of  suffering  than  the  reverse. 
It  aims  at  an  ideal  higher  than  we  can  attain.  It  takes 
the  lowest  view  of  our  own  achievements.  It  suffers 
keenly  from  the  many  shortcomings  of  which  it  is  acutely 
sensible.  Ear  from  indulging  in  the  pleasurable  retro- 
spect of  a  well-spent  life,  it  urges  men  to  constant, 
painful,  and  often  unsuccessful  effort.  A  nature  that  is 
strung  to  the  saintly  or  the  heroic  level  will  find  itself 
placed  in  a  jarring  world,  will  provoke  much  friction  and 
opposition,  and  will  be  pained  by  many  things  in  which  a 
lower  nature  would  placidly  acquiesce.  The  highest  form 
of  intellectual  virtue  is  that  love  of  truth  for  its  own  sake 
which  breaks  up  prejudices,  tempers  enthusiasm  by  the 
full  admission  of  opposing  arguments  and  qualifying  cir- 
cumstances, and  places  in  the  sphere  of  possibility  or 
probability  many  things  which  we  would  gladly  accept 
as  certainties.  Candour  and  impartiality  are  in  a  large 
degree  virtues  of  temperament ;  but  no  one  who  has  any 
real  knowledge  of  human  nature  can  doubt  how  much 
more  pleasurable  it  is  to  most  men   to  live  under  the 


MORALS  AND   HAPPINESS  31 

empire  of  invincible  prejudice,  deliberately  shutting  out 
every  consideration  that  could  shake  or  qualify  cherished 
beliefs.  '  God,'  says  Emerson,  '  offers  to  every  mind  its 
choice  between  truth  and  repose.  Take  which  you  please. 
You  can  never  have  both.'  One  of  the  strongest  argu- 
ments of  natural  religion  rests  upon  the  fact  that  virtue 
so  often  fails  to  bring  its  reward ;  upon  the  belief  that  is 
so  deeply  implanted  in  human  nature  that  this  is  essen- 
tially unjust  and  must  in  some  future  state  be  remedied. 

For  such  reasons  as  these  I  believe  it  to  be  impossible 
to  identify  virtue  with  happiness,  and  the  views  of  the 
opposite  school  seem  to  me  chiefly  to  rest  upon  an  un- 
natural and  deceptive  use  of  words.  Even  when  the 
connection  between  virtue  and  pleasure  is  most  close,  it 
is  true,  as  the  old  Stoics  said,  that  though  virtue  gives 
pleasure,  this  is  not  the  reason  why  a  good  man  will 
practise  it ;  that  pleasure  is  the  companion  and  not  the 
guide  of  his  life ;  that  he  does  not  love  virtue  because  it 
gives  pleasure,  but  it  gives  pleasure  because  he  loves  it.^ 
A  true  account  of  human  nature  will  recognise  that  it  has 
the  power  of  aiming  at  something  which  is  different  from 
happiness  and  something  which  may  be  intelligibly  de- 
scribed as  higher,  and  that  on  the  predominance  of  this 
loftier  aim  the  nobility  of  life  essentially  depends.  It  is 
not  even  true  that  the  end  of  man  should  be  to  find  peace 
at  the  last.  It  should  be  to  do  his  duty  and  tell  the 
truth. 

But  while  this  great  truth  of  the  existence  of  a  higher 
aim  than  happiness  should  be  always  maintained,  the 
relations  between  morals  and  happiness  are  close  and 
intimate  and  well  worthy  of  investigation.  As  far  as  the 
lower  or  more  commonplace  virtues  are  concerned  there 
'  Seneca,  De  Vita  Beata. 


32  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

can  be  no  mistake.     It  is  very  evident  that  a  healthy, 
long  and  prosperous  life  is  more  hkely  to  be  attained  by 
industry,  moderation    and  purity  than   by  the    opposite 
courses.     It  is  very  evident  that  drunkenness  and  sensuality 
ruin   health  and   shorten   life ;   that   idleness,  gambling, 
and  disorderly  habits  ruin  prosperity;    that   ill   temper, 
selfishness  and  envy  kill  friendship  and  provoke  animosities 
and  dislike  ;    that  in  every   well-regulated  society   there 
is  at   least   a   general   coincidence  between   the  path  of 
duty   and  the  path  of   prosperity  ;    dishonesty,   violence 
and   disregard   for   the   rights   of    others   naturally   and 
usually  bringing  their  punishment  either  from  law  or  from 
public  opinion  or  from  both.     Bishop  Butler  has  argued 
that  the  general  tendency  in  virtue  to  lead  to  happiness 
and  the  general  tendency  of  vice  to  lead  to  unhappiness 
prove  that   even  in  its   present   state   there   is   a   moral 
government  of  the  world,  and  whatever  controversy  may 
be  raised  about  the  inference  there  can  at  least  be  no  doubt 
about  the  substantial  truth  of  the  facts.     Happiness,  as 
I  have  already  said,  is  best  attained  when  it  is  not  the 
direct  or  at  least  the  main  object  that   is   aimed   at.     A 
wasted  and  inactive  life  not  only  palls  in  itself  but  deprives 
men  of  the  very  real  and  definite  pleasure  that  naturally 
arises  from  the  healthful  activity  of  all  our  powers,  while 
a   life  of   egotism   excludes   the  pleasures   of   sympathy 
which  play  so  large  a  part  in   human  happiness.     One 
of   the   lessons   which   experience   most   clearly   teaches 
is   that  work,  duty  and  the  discipline  of  character  are 
essential  elements  of  lasting  happiness.     The  pleasures  of 
vice  are  often  real,  but  they  are  commonly  transient  and 
they  leave  legacies  of  suffering,  weakness,  or  care,  behind 
them.     The  nobler  pleasures  for  the  most  part  grow  and 
strengthen  with  advancing  years.     The  passions  of  youth, 


UNSELFISHNESS  AND  HAPPINESS  38 

when  duly  regulated,  gradually  transform  themselves  into 
habits,  interests  and  steady  affections,  and  it  is  in  the 
long  forecasts  of  life  that  the  superiority  of  virtue  as  an 
element  of  happiness  becomes  most  apparent. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  such  words  as  '  pastime ' 
and  '  diversion '  applied  to  our  pleasures  are  among  the 
most  melancholy  in  the  language,  for  they  are  the  con- 
fession of  human  nature  that  it  cannot  find  happiness  in 
itself  but  must  seek  for  something  that  will  fill  up  time, 
will  cover  the  void  which  it  feels,  and  divert  men's 
thoughts  from  the  conditions  and  prospects  of  their  own 
lives.  How  much  of  the  pleasure  of  Society,  and  indeed 
of  all  amusements,  depends  on  their  power  of  making 
us  forget  ourselves !  The  substratum  of  life  is  sad,  and 
few  men  who  reflect  on  the  dangers  and  uncertainties  that 
surround  it  can  find  it  even  tolerable  without  much  ex- 
traneous aid.  The  first  and  most  vital  of  these  aids  is  to 
be  found  in  the  creation  of  strong  interests.  It  is  one  of 
the  laws  of  our  being  that  by  seeking  interests  rather 
than  by  seeking  pleasures  we  can  best  encounter  the  gloom 
of  life.  But  those  only  have  the  highest  efficiency  which 
are  of  an  unselfish  nature.  By  throwing  their  whole 
nature  into  the  interests  of  others  men  most  effectually 
escape  the  melancholy  of  introspection ;  the  horizon  of 
life  is  enlarged ;  the  development  of  the  moral  and  sym- 
pathetic feelings  chases  egotistic  cares,  and  by  the  same 
paradox  that  we  have  seen  in  other  parts  of  human  nature 
men  best  attain  their  own  happiness  by  absorbing  them- 
selves in  the  pursuit  of  the  happiness  of  others. 

The  aims  and  perspective  of  a  well-regulated  life  have 
never,  I  think,  been  better  described  than  in  one  of  the 
letters  of  Burke  to  the  Duke  of  Eichmond.  *  It  is  wise 
indeed,  considering  the  many  positive  vexations  and  the 

D 


84  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

inimmerable  bitter  disappointments  of  pleasure  in  the 
world,  to  have  as  many  resources  of  satisfaction  as  possible 
within  one's  power.  Whenever  we  concentre  the  mind 
on  one  sole  object,  that  object  and  life  itself  must  go 
together.  But  though  it  is  right  to  have  reserves  of  employ- 
ment, still  some  one  object  must  be  kept  principal ;  greatly 
and  eminently  so ;  and  the  other  masses  and  figures  must 
preserve  their  due  subordination,  to  make  out  the  grand 
composition  of  an  important  life.'  ^  It  is  equally  true 
that  among  these  objects  the  disinterested  and  the  un- 
selfish should  hold  a  predominant  place.  With  some  this 
side  of  their  activity  is  restricted  to  the  narrow  circle  of 
home  or  to  the  isolated  duties  and  charities  of  their  own 
neighbourhood.  With  others  it  takes  the  form  of  large 
public  interests,  of  a  keen  participation  in  social,  philan- 

^  thropic,  political  or  religious  enterprises.  Character  plays 
a  larger  part  than  intellect  in  the  happiness  of  life,  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  unselfish  part  of  our  nature  is  not  only 

,one  of  the  first  lessons  of  morals  but  also  of  wisdom. 

Like  most  other  things  its  difficulties  lie  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  it  is  by  steady  practice  that  it  passes  into  a 
second  and  instinctive  nature.  The  power  of  man  to 
change  organically  his  character  is  a  very  limited  one, 
but  on  the  whole  the  improvement  of  character  is  probably 
more  within  his  reach  than  intellectual  development. 
Time  and  Opportunity  are  wanting  to  most  men  for  any 
considerable  intellectual  study,  and  even  were  it  otherwise, 
every  man  will  find  large  tracts  of  knowledge  and  thought 
wholly  external  to  his  tastes,  aptitudes  and  comprehension. 
But  every  one  can  in  some  measure  learn  the  lesson  of 
self-sacrifice,  practise  what  is  right,  correct  or  at  least 
mitigate   his  dominant  faults.     What  fine  examples  of 

'  Burke's  Correspondence,  i.  376,  377. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   OF   CHAEITY  35 

self-sacrifice,  quiet  courage,  resignation  in  misfortune, 
patient  performance  of  painful  duty,  magnanimity  and 
forgiveness  under  injury  may  be  often  found  among  those 
who  are  intellectually  the  most  commonplace  ! 

The  insidious  growth  of  selfishness  is  a  disease  against 
which  men  should  be  most  on  their  guard ;  but  it  is  a 
grave  though  a  common  error  to  suppose  that  the  unself- 
ish instincts  may  be  gratified  without  restraint.  There  is 
here,  however,  one  important  distinction  to  be  noted.  The 
many  and  great  evils  that  have  sprung  from  lavish  and 
ill-considered  charities  do  not  always  or  perhaps  generally 
spring  from  any  excess  or  extravagance  of  the  charitable 
feeling.  They  are  much  more  commonly  due  to  its  defect. 
The  rich  man  who  never  cares  to  inquire  into  the  details 
of  the  cases  that  are  brought  before  him  or  to  give  any 
serious  thought  to  the  ulterior  consequences  of  his  acts, 
but  who  is  ready  to  give  money  at  any  solicitation  and 
who  considers  that  by  so  doing  he  has  discharged  his 
duty,  is  far  more  likely  to  do  harm  in  this  way  than  the 
man  who  devotes  himself  to  patient,  plodding,  house  to 
house  work  among  the  poor.  The  many  men  and  the 
probably  still  larger  number  of  women  who  give  up 
great  portions  of  their  lives  to  such  work  soon  learn 
to  trace  with  considerable  accuracy  the  consequences  of 
their  charities  and  to  discriminate  between  the  worthy 
and  the  unworthy.  That  such  persons  often  become 
exclusive  and  one-sided,  and  acquire  a  kind  of  professional 
bent  which  induces  them  to  subordinate  all  national  con- 
siderations to  their  own  subject  and  lose  sight  of  the  true 
proportion  of  things,  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  it  will  pro- 
bably not  be  found  with  the  best  workers  that  such  a  life 
tends  to  unduly  intensify  emotion.  As  Bishop  Butler  has 
said  with  profound  truth,  active  habits  are  strengthened 

D   2 


86  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

and  passive  impressions  weakened  by  repetition,  and  a  life 
spent  in  active  charitable  work  is  quite  compatible  with 
much  sobriety  and  even  coldness  of  judgment  in  estimat- 
ing each  case  as  it  arises.  It  is  not  the  surgeon  who  is 
continually  employed  in  operations  for  the  cure  of  his 
patients  who  is  most  moved  at  the  sight  of  suffering. 

This  is^  I  believe,  on  the  whole  true,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  there  are  grave  diseases  which  attach  themselves 
peculiarly  to  the  unselfish  side  of  our  nature,  and  they 
are  peculiarly  dangerous  because  men,  feeling  that  the 
unselfish  is  the  virtuous  and  nobler  side  of  their  being, 
are  apt  to  suffer  these  tendencies  to  operate  without  super- 
vision or  control.  Yet  it  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate 
the  calamities  that  have  sprung  from  misjudged  unselfish 
actions.  The  whole  history  of  religious  persecution  abun- 
dantly illustrates  it,  for  there  can  be  little  question  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  persecutors  were  sincerely  seeking 
what  they  believed  to  be  the  highest  good  of  mankind. 
And  if  this  dark  page  of  human  history  is  now  almost 
closed,  there  are  still  many  other  ways  in  which  a  similar 
evil  is  displayed.  Crotchets,  sentimentalities,  and  fanati- 
cisms cluster  especially  around  the  unselfish  side  of  our 
nature,  and  they  work  evil  in  many  curious  and  subtle 
ways.  Few  things  have  done  more  harm  in  the  world 
than  disproportioned  compassion.  It  is  a  law  of  our 
being  that  we  are  only  deeply  moved  by  sufferings  we 
distinctly  realise,  and  the  degrees  in  which  different  kinds 
of  suffering  appeal  to  the  imagination  bear  no  proportion 
to  their  real  magnitude.  The  most  benevolent  man  will 
read  of  an  earthquake  in  Japan  or  a  plague  in  South 
America  with  a  callousness  he  would  never  display  towards 
some  untimely  death  or  some  painful  accident  in  his 
immediate  neighbourhood,  and  in  general  the  suffering  of 


DISPROPOETIONED   COMPASSION  37 

a  prominent  and  isolated  individual  strikes  us  much  more 
forcibly  than  that  of  an  undistinguished  multitude.  Few 
deaths  are  so  prominent,  and  therefore  few  produce  such 
widespread  compassion,  as  those  of  conspicuous  criminals. 
It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  death  of  an  '  inte- 
resting '  murderer  will  often  arouse  much  stronger  feelings 
than  were  ever  excited  by  the  death  of  his  victim ;  or  by 
the  deaths  of  brave  soldiers  w^ho  perished  by  disease  or  by 
the  sword  in  some  obscure  expedition  in  a  remote  country. 
This  mode  of  judgment  acts  promptly  upon  conduct. 
The  humanitarian  spirit  which  mitigates  the  penal  code 
and  makes  the  reclamation  of  the  criminal  a  main  object 
is  a  perfectly  right  thing  as  long  as  it  does  not  so  far 
diminish  the  deterrent  power  of  punishment  as  to  increase 
crime,  and  as  long  as  it  does  not  place  the  criminal  in  a 
better  position  of  comfort  than  the  blameless  poor,  but 
when  these  conditions  are  not  fulfilled  it  is  much  more  an 
evil  than  a  good.  The  remote,  indirect  and  unrealised 
consequences  of  our  acts  are  often  far  more  important 
than  those  which  are  manifest  and  direct,  and  it  con- 
tinually happens  that  in  extirpating  some  concentrated 
and  obtrusive  evil,  men  increase  or  engender  a  diffused 
malady  which  operates  over  a  far  wider  area.  How  few, 
for  example,  who  share  the  prevailing  tendency  to  deal 
with  every  evil  that  appears  in  Society  by  coercive  legis- 
lation adequately  realise  the  danger  of  weakening  the 
robust,  self-reliant,  resourceful  habits  on  which  the  happi- 
ness of  Society  so  largely  depends,  and  at  the  same  time, 
by  multiplying  the  functions  and  therefore  increasing 
the  expenses  of  government,  throwing  new  and  crushing 
burdens  on  struggling  industry  ?  How  often  have  philan- 
thropists, through  a  genuine  interest  for  some  suffering 
class  or  people,  advocated  measures  which  by  kindling, 


38  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

prolonging,  or  enlarging  a  great  war  would  infallibly 
create  calamities  far  greater  than  those  which  they  would 
redress  !  How  often  might  great  outbursts  of  savage 
crime  or  grave  and  lasting  disorders  in  the  State,  or 
international  conflicts  that  have  cost  thousands  of  lives, 
have  been  averted  by  a  prompt  and  unflinching  severity 
from  which  an  ill-judged  humanity  recoiled !  If  in  the 
February  of  1848  Louis  Philippe  had  permitted  Marshal 
Bugeaud  to  fire  on  the  Eevolutionary  mob  at  a  time  when 
there  was  no  real  and  widespread  desire  for  revolution  in 
France,  how  many  bloody  pages  of  French  and  European 
history  might  have  been  spared ! 

Measures  guaranteeing  men,  and  still  more  women, 
from  excessive  labour,  and  surrounding  them  with  costly 
sanitary  precautions,  may  easily,  if  they  are  injudiciously 
framed,  so  handicap  a  sex  or  a  people  in  the  competition 
of  industry  as  to  drive  them  out  of  great  fields  of  industry, 
restrict  their  means  of  livelihood,  lower  their  standard 
of  wages  and  comfort,  and  thus  seriously  diminish  the 
happiness  of  their  lives.  Injudicious  suppressions  of 
amusements  that  are  not  wholly  good,  but  which  afford 
keen  enjoyment  to  great  masses,  seldom  fail  to  give  an 
impulse  to  other  pleasures  more  secret  and  probably  more 
vicious.  Injudicious  charities,  or  an  extravagant  and  too 
indulgent  poor  law  administration,  inevitably  discourage 
industry  and  thrift,  and  usually  increase  the  poverty  they 
were  intended  to  cure.  The  parent  who  shrinks  from 
inflicting  any  suffering  on  his  child  or  withholding  from 
him  any  pleasure  that  he  desires,  is  not  laying  the 
foundation  of  a  happy  life,  and  the  benevolence  which 
counteracts  or  obscures  the  law  of  nature  that  extra- 
vagance, improvidence  and  vice  lead  naturally  to  ruin, 
is   no   real    kindness    either    to   the    upright   man   who 


DISPROPORTIONED  COMPASSION  39 

has  resisted  temptation  or  to  the  weak  man  whose  virtue 
is  trembling  doubtfully  in  the  balance.  Nor  is  it  in  the 
long  run  for  the  benefit  of  the  world  that  superior  ability 
or  superior  energy  or  industry  should  be  handicapped  in 
the  race  of  life,  forbidden  to  encounter  exceptional  risks 
for  the  sake  of  exceptional  rewards,  reduced  by  regulations 
to  measures  of  work  and  gain  intended  for  the  benefit  of 
inferior  characters  or  powers. 

The  fatal  vice  of  ill-considered  benevolence  is  that 
it  looks  only  to  proximate  and  immediate  results  without 
considering  either  alternatives  or  distant  and  indirect 
consequences.  A  large  and  highly  respectable  form  of 
benevolence  is  that  connected  with  the  animal  world,  and 
in  England  it  is  carried  in  some  respects  to  a  point  which 
is  unknown  on  the  Continent.  But  what  a  strange  form 
of  compassion  is  that  which  long  made  it  impossible  to 
establish  a  Pasteur  Institute  in  England,  obliging  patients 
threatened  with  one  of  the  most  horrible  diseases  that  can 
afflict  mankind  to  go — as  they  are  always  ready  to  do — to 
Paris,  in  order  to  undergo  a  treatment  which  what  is 
called  the  humane  sentiment  of  Englishmen  forbid  them 
to  receive  at  home  !  What  a  strange  form  of  benevolence 
is  that  which  in  a  country  where  field  sports  are  the 
habitual  amusement  of  the  higher  ranks  of  Society  de- 
nounces as  criminal  even  the  most  carefully  limited  and 
supervised  experiments  on  living  animals,  and  would  thus 
close  the  best  hope  of  finding  remedies  for  some  of  the 
worst  forms  of  human  suffering,  the  one  sure  method  of 
testing  supposed  remedies  which  may  be  fatal  or  which 
may  be  of  incalculable  benefit  to  mankind !  Foreign 
critics,  indeed,  often  go  much  further  and  believe  that  in 
other  forms  connected  with  this  subject  public  opinion 
in    England    is    strangely   capricious    and    inconsistent. 

UKlVERSiiY 


40  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

They  compare  with  astonishment  the  sentences  that  are 
sometimes  passed  for  the  ill-treatment  of  a  woman  and 
for  the  ill-treatment  of  a  cat ;  they  ask  whether  the  real 
suffering  caused  by  many  things  that  are  in  England 
punished  by  law  or  reprobated  by  opinion  are  greater 
than  those  caused  by  sports  which  are  constantly  practised 
without  reproach ;  and  they  are  apt  to  find  much  that  is 
exaggerated  or  even  fantastic  in  the  great  popularity  and 
elaboration  of  some  animal  charities.^  At  the  same  time 
in  our  own  country  the  more  recognised  field  sports 
greatly  trouble  many  benevolent  natures.  I  will  here 
only  say  that  while  the  positive  benefits  they  produce  are 
great  and  manifest,  those  who  condemn  them  constantly 
forget  what  would  be  the  fate  of  the  animals  that  are 
slaughtered  if  such  sports  did  not  exist,  and  how  little  the 
balance  of  suffering  is  increased  or  altered  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  beings  which  themselves  live  by  destroying.  As 
a  poet  says — 

The  fish  exult  whene'er  the  seagull  dies, 

The  sahnon's  death  preserves  a  thousand  flies. 

On   most   of   these   questions   the   effect    on    human 
character  is  a   more   important   consideration   than   the 

'  As  I  am  writing  these  pages  I  find  the  following  paragraph  in  a 
newspaper  which  may  illustrate  my  meaning: — 'DOGS'  NXJESING.  A 
case  was  heard  at  the  Brompton  County  Court  on  Friday  in  which  some 
suggestive  evidence  was  given  of  the  medical  treatment  of  dogs.  The 
proprietor  of  a  dogs'  infirmary  at  Tattersall's  Corner  sued  Mr.  Harding 
Cox  for  the  board  and  lodging  of  seven  dogs,  and  the  regime  was  ex- 
plained. They  are  fed  on  essence  of  meat,  washed  down  with  port 
wine,  and  have  as  a  digestive  eggs  beaten  up  in  milk  and  ai'rowroot. 
Medicated  baths  and  tonics  are  also  supplied,  and  occasionally  the  animals 
are  treated  to  a  day  in  the  country.  This  course  of  hygiene  necessitated 
an  expenditure  of  ten  shillings  a  week.  The  defendant  pleaded  that  the 
charges  were  excessive,  but  the  judge  awarded  the  plaintiff  £25.  How  many 
hospital  patients  receive  such  treatment  ? ' — Daily  Express,  February  16, 
1897. 


TREATMENT  OF  ANIMALS  41 

effect  on  animal  happiness.  The  best  thing  that  legisla- 
tion can  do  for  wild  animals  is  to  extend  as  far  as 
possible  to  harmless  classes  a  close  time,  securing  them 
immunity  while  they  are  producing  and  supporting  their 
young.  This  is  the  truest  kindness,  and  on  quite  other 
grounds  it  is  pecuHarly  needed,  as  the  improvement  of  fire- 
arms and  the  increase  of  population  have  completely 
altered,  as  far  as  man  is  concerned,  the  old  balance 
between  production  and  destruction,  and  threaten,  if  un- 
checked, to  lead  to  an  almost  complete  extirpation  of  great 
classes  of  the  animal  world.  It  is  melancholy  to  observe 
how  often  sensitive  women  who  object  to  field  sports  and 
who  denounce  all  experiments  on  living  animals  will  be 
found  supporting  with  perfect  callousness  fashions  that  are 
leading  to  the  wholesale  destruction  of  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  species  of  birds,  and  are  in  some  cases  dependent 
upon  acts  of  very  aggravated  cruelty. 


42  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTEE   V 

The  illustrations  given  in  the  last  chapter  will  be  sufficient 
to  show  the  danger  of  permitting  the  unselfish  side  of 
human  nature  to  run  wild  without  serious  control  by  the 
reason  and  by  the  will.  To  see  things  in  their  true  pro- 
portion, to  escape  the  magnifying  influence  of  a  morbid 
imagination,  should  be  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  life,  and 
in  no  fields  is  it  more  needed  than  in  those  we  have  been 
reviewing.  At  the  same  time  every  age  has  its  own  ideal 
moral  type  towards  which  the  strongest  and  best  influ- 
ences of  the  time  converge.  The  history  of  morals  is 
essentially  a  history  of  the  changes  that  take  place  not 
so  much  in  our  conception  of  what  is  right  and  wrong  as 
in  the  proportionate  place  and  prominence  we  assign  to 
different  virtues  and  vices.  There  are  large  groups  of 
moral  qualities  which  in  some  ages  of  the  world's  history 
have  been  regarded  as  of  supreme  importance,  while  in 
other  ages  they  are  thrown  into  the  background,  and 
there  are  corresponding  groups  of  vices  which  are  treated 
in  some  periods  as  very  serious  and  in  others  as  very 
trivial.  The  heroic  type  of  Paganism  and  the  saintly 
type  of  Christianity  in  its  purest  form,  consist  largely  of 
the  same  elements,  but  the  proportions  in  which  they  are 
mixed  are  altogether  different.  There  are  ages  when  the 
military  and  civic  virtues — the  qualities  that  make  good 
soldiers  and  patriotic  citizens — dominate  over  all  others. 


DIFFERENCES   OF   MOHAL   TYPE  43 

The  self-sacrifice  of  the  best  men  flows  habitually  in  these 
channels.  In  such  an  age  integrity  in  business  relations 
and  the  domestic  virtues  which  maintain  the  purity  of 
the  family  may  be  highly  valued,  but  they  are  chiefly 
valued  because  they  are  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the 
State.  The  soldier  who  has  attained  to  the  highest  degree 
the  best  qualities  of  his  profession,  the  patriot  who 
sacrifices  to  the  services  of  the  State  his  comforts,  his 
ambitions  and  his  life,  is  the  supreme  model,  and  the 
estimation  in  which  he  is  held  is  but  little  lowered  even 
though  he  may  have  been  guilty,  like  Cato,  of  atrocious 
cruelty  to  his  slaves,  or,  like  some  of  the  heroes  of  ancient 
times,  of  scandalous  forms  of  private  profligacy. 

There  are  other  ages  in  which  military  life  is  looked 
upon  by  moralists  with  disfavour,  and  in  which  patriotism 
ranks  very  low  in  the  scale  of  virtues,  while  charity,  gentle- 
ness, self-abnegation,  devotional  habits,  and  purity  in 
thought,  word  and  act  are  pre-eminently  inculcated.  The 
intellectual  virtues,  again,  which  deal  with  truth  and 
falsehood,  form  a  distinct  group.  The  habit  of  mind 
which  makes  men  love  truth  for  its  own  sake  as  the 
supreme  ideal,  and  which  turns  aside  from  all  falsehood, 
exaggeration,  party  or  sectarian  misrepresentation  and 
invention,  is  in  no  age  a  common  one,  but  there  are  some 
ages  in  which  it  is  recognised  and  inculcated  as  virtue, 
while  there  are  others  in  which  it  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  whole  tendency  of  religious  teaching  has 
been  to  discourage  it.  During  many  centuries  the  ascetic 
and  purely  ecclesiastical  standard  of  virtue  completely 
dominated.  The  domestic  virtues,  though  clearly  recog- 
nised, held  altogether  a  subordinate  place  to  what  were 
deemed  the  higher  virtues  of  the  ascetic  cehbate.  Charity, 
though    nobly   cultivated    and   practised,   was    regarded 


44  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

mainly  through  a  dogmatic  medium  and  practised  less  for 
the  benefit  of  the  recipient  than  for  the  spiritual  welfare 
of  the  donor. 

In  the  eyes  of  multitudes  the  highest  conception  of 
a  saintly  life  consisted  largely  if  not  mainly  in  complete 
detachment  from  secular  interests  and  affections.  No 
type  v/as  more  admired,  and  no  type  was  ever  more  com- 
pletely severed  from  all  active  duties  and  all  human  rela- 
tions than  that  of  the  saint  of  the  desert  or  of  the  monk 
of  one  of  the  contemplative  orders.  To  die  to  the  world ; 
to  become  indifferent  to  its  aims,  interests  and  pleasures ; 
to  measure  all  things  by  a  standard  wholly  different  from 
human  happiness,  to  live  habitually  for  another  life  was 
the  constant  teaching  of  the  saints.  In  the  stress  laid  on 
the  cultivation  of  the  spiritual  life  the  whole  sphere  of 
active  duties  sank  into  a  lower  plane ;  and  the  eye  of  the 
mind  was  turned  upwards  and  inwards  and  but  little  on 
the  world  around.  '  Happy,'  said  one  saint,  '  is  the  mind 
which  sees  but  two  objects,  God  and  self,  one  of  which 
conceptions  fills  it  with  a  sovereign  delight  and  the  other 
abases  it  to  the  extremest  dejection.'  ^  *  As  much  love  as 
we  give  to  creatures,'  said  another  Saint,  '  just  so  much 
we  steal  from  the  Creator.'  ^  *  Two  things  only  do  I  ask,' 
said  a  third,^  *  to  suffer  and  to  die.'  '  Forsake  all,'  said 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  '  and  thou  shalt  find  all.  Leave  desire 
and  thou  shalt  find  rest.'  *  Unless  a  man  be  disengaged 
from  the  affection  of  all  creatures  he  cannot  with  freedom 
of  mind  attend  unto  Divine  things.' 

The  gradual,  silent  and  half -unconscious  modification 
in  the  type  of  Morals  which  took  place  after  the  Reforma- 
tion was  certainly  not  the  least  important  of  its  results. 
If  it  may  be  traced  in  some   degree  to  the  distinctive 

'  St.  Francis  de  Sales.  «  gt.  Philip  Neri.  «  St.  Teresa. 


CATHOLIC   TYPES   OF   MORALS  46 

theology  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  it  was  perhaps  still 
more  due  to  the  abolition  of  clerical  celibacy  which  placed 
the  religious  teachers  in  the  centre  of  domestic  life  and  in 
close  contact  with  a  large  circle  of  social  duties.  There  is 
even  now  a  distinct  difference  between  the  morals  of  a 
sincerely  Catholic  and  a  sincerely  Protestant  country,  and 
this  difference  is  not  so  much,  as  controversialists  would 
tell  us,  in  the  greater  and  the  less  as  in  the  moral  type, 
or,  in  other  words,  in  the  different  degrees  of  importance 
attached  to  different  virtues  and  vices.  Probably  nowhere 
in  the  world  can  more  beautiful  and  more  reverent  types 
be  found  than  in  some  of  the  Catholic  countries  of  Europe 
which  are  but  little  touched  by  the  intellectual  move- 
ments of  the  age,  but  no  good  observer  can  fail  to  notice 
how  much  larger  is  the  place  given  to  duties  which  rest 
wholly  on  theological  considerations,  and  how  largely 
even  the  natural  duties  are  based  on  such  considerations 
and  governed,  limited,  and  sometimes  even  superseded  by 
them.  The  ecclesiastics  who  at  the  Council  of  Constance 
induced  Sigismund  to  violate  the  safe-conduct  he  had 
given,  and  in  spite  of  his  solemn  promise  to  condemn 
Huss  to  a  death  of  fire,^  and  the  ecclesiastics  who  at  the 
Diet  of  Worms  vainly  tried  to  induce  Charles  V.  to  act 
with  a  similar  perfidy  towards  Luther,  represent  a  con- 
ception of  morals  which  is  abundantly  prevalent  in  our 
day.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries the  obligation  of  truthfulness  in  cases  in  which  it 
conflicts  with  the  interests  of  the  Church  rests  wholly  on 


'  •  Cum  dictus  Johannes  Hus  fidem  orthodoxam  pertinaciter  impugnans, 
se  ab  omni  conductu  et  privilegio  reddiderit  alienum,  nee  aliqua  sibi  fides 
aut  promissio  de  jure  natural!  divino  vel  humano,  fuerit  in  praejudicium 
Catholicse  fidei  observanda.'  Declaration  of  the  Council  of  Constance. 
See  Creighton's  History  of  the  Papacy,  ii.  32. 


46  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  basis  of  honour,  and  not  at  all  on  the  basis  of  religion. 
In  the  estimates  of  Catholic  rulers  no  impartial  observer 
can  fail  to  notice  how  their  attitude  towards  the  interest 
of  the  Churcji  dominates  over  all  considerations  of  public 
and  private  morals. 

In  past  ages  this  was  much  more  the  case.  The 
Church  filled  in  the  minds  of  men  a  place  at  least 
equal  to  that  of  the  State  in  the  Roman  Republic .  Men 
who  had  made  great  sacrifices  for  it  and  rendered  great 
services  to  it  were  deemed,  beyond  all  others,  the  good 
men,  and  in  those  men  things  which  we  should  regard 
as  grossly  criminal  appeared  mere  venial  frailties.  Let 
any  one  who  doubts  this,  study  the  lives  of  the  early 
Catholic  saints,  and  the  still  more  instructive  pages  in 
which  Gregory  of  Tours  and  other  ecclesiastical  annalists 
have  described  the  characters  and  acts  of  the  more  pro- 
minent figures  in  the  secular  history  of  their  times,  and 
he  vnll  soon  feel  that  he  has  passed  into  a  moral  atmo- 
sphere and  is  dealing  with  moral  measurements  and 
perspectives  wholly  unlike  those  of  our  own  day.^ 

In  highly  civilised  ages  the  same  spirit  may  be  clearly 
traced.  Bossuet  was  certainly  no  hypocrite  or  sycophant, 
but  a  man  of  austere  virtue  and  undoubted  courage.  He 
did  not  hesitate  to  rebuke  the  gross  profligacy  of  the  life 
of  Louis  XIV.,  and  although  neither  he  nor  any  of  the 
other  Catholic  divines  of  his  age  seriously  protested  against 
the  wars  of  pure  egotism  and  ostentation  which  made 
that  sovereign  the  scourge  of  Europe  and  brought  down 
upon  his  people  calamities  immeasurably  greater  than  the 
faults  of  his  private  life — although,  indeed,  he  has  spoken 
of  those  wars  in  language  of  rapturous  and  unqualified 

'  I  have  collected  some  illustrations  of  this  in  my  History  of  European 
Morals,  ii.  235-242. 


CATHOLIC   TYPES   OF  MORALS  47 

eulogy  ^ — he  had  at  least  the  grace  to  devote  a  chapter  of 
his  *  Politique  tiree  de  I'Ecriture  Sainte  '  to  the  theme 
that  *  God  does  not  love  war.'  But  in  the  eyes  of  Bossuet 
the  dominant  fact  in  the  life  of  Louis  XIV.  was  the 
Eevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  and  the  savage  perse- 
cution of  the  Huguenots,  and  this  was  sufficient  to  place 
him  among  the  best  of  sovereigns.^ 

To  those  who  will  candidly  consider  the  subject  there 
is  nothing  in  this  which  need  excite  surprise.  The  doc- 
trine that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  inspired  guide,  repre- 
senting the  voice  of  the  Divinity  on  earth  and  deciding 
with  absolute  authority  all  questions  of  right  and  wrong, 
very  naturally  led  to  the  conviction  that  nothing  which 
was  conducive  to  its  interests  could  be  really  criminal,  and 
in  all  departments  of  morals  it  regulated  the  degrees  of 
praise  and  blame.  The  doctrine  which  is  still  so  widely 
professed  but  now  so  faintly  realised,  that  the  first  essential 
to  salvation  is  orthodox  belief,  placed  conduct  on  a  lower 
plane  of  importance  than  dogma,  while  the  conviction  that 
it  is  in  the  power  of  man  to  obtain  absolute  certainty  in 
religious  belief,  that  erroneous  belief  is  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Almighty  a  crime  bringing  with  it  eternal  damnation,  and 
that  the  teacher  of  heresy  is  the  greatest  enemy  of  man- 
kind, at  once  justified  in  the  eyes  of  the  believer  acts  which 
now  seem  the  gravest  moral  aberrations.      Many  baser 

'  See,  e.g.  his  funeral  oration  on  Marie  Th^rese  d'Autriche. 

-  See  the  enthusiastic  eulogy  of  the  persecution  of  the  Huguenots  in 
his  funeral  oration  on  Michel  le  Tellier.  It  concludes :  '  Epanchons  nos 
cceurs  sur  la  pi6t6  de  Louis;  poussons  jusqu'au  ciel  nos  acclamations,  et 
disons  a  ce  nouveau  Constantin,  a  ce  nouveau  Theodose,  a  ce  nouveau 
Marcien,  a  ce  nouveau  Charlemagne  ce  que  les  six  cent  trente  Peres  dirent 
autrefois  dans  le  Concile  de  Chalc6doine :  "  Vous  avez  affermi  la  foi ;  vous 
avez  extermine  les  heretiques ;  c'est  le  digne  ouvrage  de  votre  r^gne ; 
e'en  est  le  propre  caract^re.  Par  vous  I'h^resie  n'est  plus,  Dieu  seul  a  pu 
faire  cette  merveille.  Eoi  du  ciel,  conservez  le  roi  de  la  terre ;  c'est  le 
voeu  des  Eglises ;  c'est  le  vceu  des  Ev^ques."  ' 


48  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

motives  and  elements  no  doubt  mingled  with  the  long  and 
hideous  history  of  the  religious  persecutions  of  Christen- 
dom, but  in  the  eyes  of  countless  conscientious  men  this 
teaching  seemed  amply  sufficient  to  justify  them  and  to 
stifle  all  feeling  of  compassion  for  the  victims.  Much  the 
same  considerations  explain  the  absolute  indifference  with 
which  so  many  good  men  witnessed  those  witch  persecu- 
tions which  consigned  thousands  of  old,  feeble  and  innocent 
women  to  torture  and  to  death. 

Other  illustrations  of  a  less  tragical  kind  might  be 
given.  Thus  in  cases  of  child-birth  the  physician  is  some- 
times placed  in  the  alternative  of  sacrificing  the  life  of  the 
mother  or  of  the  unborn  child.  In  such  cases  a  Protes- 
tant or  freethinking  physician  would  not  hesitate  to  save 
the  adult  life  as  by  far  the  most  valuable.  The  Catholic 
doctrine  is  that  under  such  circumstances  the  first  duty  of 
the  physician  is  to  save  the  life  of  the  unbaptized  child.^ 
Large  numbers  of  commercial  transactions  which  are 
now  universally  acknowledged  to  be  perfectly  innocent  and 
useful  would  during  a  long  period  have  been  prohibited 
on  account  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  usury  which  con- 
demned as  sinful  even  the  most  moderate  interest  on 
money  if  it  was  exacted  as  the  price  of  the  loan.^ 

Every  religious  and  indeed  every  philosophical  system 
that  has  played  a  great  part  in  the  history  of  the  world 
has  a  tendency  either  to  form  or  to  assimilate  with  a  par- 
ticular moral  type,  and  in  the  eyes  of  a  large  and  growing 
number  it  is  upon  the  excellency  of  this  type,  and  upon 
its  success  in  producing   it,  that   its   superiority  mainly 


'  See  Migne,  Encyclopidie  Th^logiquc,  '  Diet,  de  Cas  de  Conscience,' 
art.  Avortement. 

2  See  on  this  subject  my  History  of  Bationalism,  ii.  250-270,  and  my 
Democracy  and  Liberty,  ii.  185,  186,  193,  194. 


PROFANE   SWEARING  49 

depends.  The  superstructure  or  scaffolding  of  belief 
around  which  it  is  formed  appears  to  them  of  compara- 
tively little  moment,  and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
men  ardently  devoted  to  a  particular  type  long  after 
they  have  discarded  the  tenets  with  which  it  was  once 
connected.  Carlyle,  for  example,  sometimes  spoke  of 
himself  as  a  Calvinist,  and  used  language  both  in  public 
and  private  as  if  there  was  no  important  difference  between 
himself  and  the  most  orthodox  Puritans,  yet  it  is  very 
evident  that  he  disbelieved  nearly  all  the  articles  of  their 
creed.  What  he  meant  was  that  Calvinism  had  produced 
in  all  countries  in  which  it  really  dominated  a  definite 
type  of  character  and  conception  of  morals  which  was  in 
his  eyes  the  noblest  that  had  yet  appeared  in  the  world. 

'Above  all  thing Sj  my  brethren,  swear  not.'  If,  as 
is  generally  assumed,  this  refers  to  the  custom  of  using 
profane  oaths  in  common  conversation,  how  remote 
from  modern  ideas  is  the  place  assigned  to  this  vice, 
which  perhaps  affects  human  happiness  as  little  as  any 
other  that  can  be  mentioned,  in  the  scale  of  criminality, 
and  how  curiously  characteristic  is  the  fact  that  the  vice 
to  which  this  supremacy  of  enormity  is  attributed  con- 
tinued to  be  prevalent  during  the  ages  when  theological 
influences  were  most  powerful,  and  has  in  all  good  society 
faded  away  in  simple  obedience  to  a  turn  of  fashion  which 
proscribes  it  as  ungentlemanly  !  For  a  long  period.  Acts 
condemning  it  were  read  at  stated  periods  in  the  churches,^ 
and  one  of  these  described  it  as  likely  by  provoking  God's 

'  21  James  I.  c.  20 ;  19  Geo.  II.  c.  21.  The  penalties,  however,  were 
fines,  the  pillory,  or  short  periods  of  imprisonment.  The  obligation  of 
reading  the  Statute  in  churches  was  abolished  in  1823,  but  the  custom  had 
before  fallen  into  desuetude.  In  1772  a  vicar  was  (as  an  act  of  private 
vengeance)  prosecuted  and  fined  for  having  neglected  to  read  it.  {Annual 
Register,  1772,  p.  115.) 

£ 


60  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

wrath  to  '  increase  the  many  calamities  these  nations  now 
labour  under.'  How  curiously  characteristic  is  the  restric- 
tion in  common  usage  of  the  term  *  immoral '  to  a  single  vice, 
so  that  a  man  who  is  untruthful,  selfish,  cruel,  or  intempe- 
rate might  still  be  said  to  have  led  '  a  moral  life  '  because 
he  was  blameless  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes  !  In  the  esti- 
mates of  the  character  of  public  men,  the  same  dispro- 
portionate judgment  may  be  constantly  found  in  the 
comparative  stress  placed  upon  private  faults  and  the  most 
gigantic  public  crimes.  Errors  of  judgment  are  not  errors 
of  morals,  but  any  public  man  who,  through  selfish, 
ambitious,  or  party  motives,  plunges  or  helps  to  plunge 
his  country  into  an  unrighteous  or  unnecessary  war, 
subordinates  public  interest  to  his  personal  ambition, 
employs  himself  in  stimulating  class,  national,  or  pro- 
vincial hatreds,  lowers  the  moral  standard  of  public  life, 
or  supports  a  legislation  which  he  knows  to  tend  to  or 
facilitate  dishonesty,  is  committing  a  crime  before  which, 
if  it  be  measured  by  its  consequences,  the  gravest  acts 
of  mere  private  immorality  dwindle  into  insignificance. 
Yet  how  differently  in  the  case  of  brilliant  and  successful 
politicians  are  such  things  treated  in  the  judgment  of 
contemporaries,  and  sometimes  even  in  the  judgments  of 
history ! 

It  is,  I  think,  a  peculiarity  of  modern  times  that  its 
chief  moral  influences  are  much  more  various  and  complex 
than  in  the  past.  There  is  no  such  absolute  empire  as 
that  which  was  exercised  over  character  by  the  State  in 
some  periods  of  Pagan  antiquity  and  by  the  Church  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  Our  civilisation  is  more  than  anything 
else  an  industrial  civilisation,  and  industrial  habits  are 
probably  the  strongest  in  forming  the  moral  type  to  which 
public   opinion   aspires.     Slavery,   which    threw  a   deep 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  MODERN   MORALS  51 

discredit  on  industry  and  on  the  qualities  it  fosters,  has 
passed  away.  The  feudal  system,  which  placed  industry 
in  an  inferior  position,  has  been  abolished,  and  the  strong 
modem  tendency  to  diminish  both  the  privileges  and  the 
exclusiveness  of  rank  and  to  increase  the  importance  of 
wealth  is  in  the  same  direction.  An  industrial  society 
has  its  special  vices  and  failings,  but  it  naturally  brings 
into  the  boldest  relief  the  moral  qualities  which  industry 
is   most   fitted  to  foster  and  on  which   it  most  largely';  . 

depends,  and  it  also  gives  the  whole  tone  of  moral  thinking  \   jP^l 
a  utilitarian  character.     It  is  not  Christianity  but  Indus-*       ^i-k 
trialism  that  has  brought  into  the  world  that  strong  sense 
of  the  moral  value  of  thrift,  steady  industry,  punctuality 
in  observing  engagements,  constant  forethought  with  a 
view  to  providing  for  the  contingencies  of  the  future,  which  ^ 
is  now  so  characteristic  of  the  moral  type  of  the  most 
civilised  nations. 

Many  other  influences,  however,  have  contributed  to 
intensify,  qualify,  or  impair  the  industrial  type.  Protes- 
tantism has  disengaged  primitive  Christian  ethics  from  a 
crowd  of  superstitious  and  artificial  duties  which  had  over- 
laid them,  and  a  similar  process  has  been  going  on  in 
Catholic  countries  under  the  influence  of  the  rationalising 
and  sceptical  spirit.  The  influence  of  dogmatic  theology 
on  Morals  has  declined.  Out  of  the  vast  and  complex 
religious  systems  of  the  past,  an  eclectic  spirit  is  bringing 
into  special  and  ever-increasing  prominence  those  Christian 
virtues  which  are  most  manifestly  in  accordance  with 
natural  religion  and  most  clearly  conducive  to  the  well- 
being  of  men  upon  the  earth.  Philanthropy  or  charity, 
which  forms  the  centre  of  the  system,  has  also  been 
immensely  intensified  by  increased  knowledge  and  realisa- 
tion of  the  wants  and  sorrows  of  others ;  by  the  sensitive- 

E  2 


62  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

ness  to  pain,  by  the  softening  of  manners  and  the  more 
humane  and  refined  tastes  and  habits  which  a  highly 
elaborated  intellectual  civilisation  naturally  produces.  The 
sense  of  duty  plays  a  great  part  in  modern  philanthropy,  and 
lower  motives  of  ostentation  or  custom  mingle  largely 
with  the  genuine  kindliness  of  feeling  that  inspires  it ;  but 
on  the  whole  it  is  probable  that  men  in  our  day  in  doing 
good  to  others,  look  much  more  exclusively  than  in  the 
past  to  the  benefit  of  the  recipient  and  much  less  to  some 
reward  for  their  acts  in  a  future  world.  As  long,  too,  as 
this  benefit  is  attained,  they  will  gladly  diminish  as  much 
as  possible  the  self-sacrifice  it  entails.  An  eminently  cha- 
racteristic feature  of  modern  philanthropy  is  its  close  con- 
nection with  amusements.  There  was  a  time  when  a  great 
philanthropic  work  would  be  naturally  supported  by  an 
issue  of  indulgences  promising  specific  advantages  in 
another  world  to  all  who  took  part  in  it.  In  our  own 
generation  balls,  bazaars,  theatrical  or  other  amuse- 
ments given  for  the  benefit  of  the  charity,  occupy  an 
almost  corresponding  place. 

At  the  same  time  increasing  knowledge,  and  especially 
the  kind  of  knowledge  which  science  gives,  has  in  other 
ways  largely  affected  our  judgments  of  right  and  wrong. 
The  mental  discipline,  the  habits  of  sound  and  accurate 
reasoning,  the  distrust  of  mere  authority  and  of  untested 
assertions  and  traditions  that  science  tends  to  produce, 
all  stimulate  the  intellectual  virtues,  and  science  has 
done  much  to  rectify  the  chart  of  life,  pointing  out 
more  clearly  the  true  conditions  of  human  well-being  and 
disclosing  much  baselessness  and  many  errors  in  the 
teaching  of  the  past.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said  that 
the  civic  or  the  military  influences  have  declined.  If  the 
State  does  not  hold  altogether  the  same  place  as  in  Pagan 


CHANGED   ESTIMATE   OF   SUFFERING  53 

antiquity,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  in  a  democratic  age 
public  interests  are  enormously  prominent  in  the  lives  of 
men,  and  there  is  a  growing  and  dangerous  tendency  to 
aggrandise  the  influence  of  the  State  over  the  individual, 
while  modern  militarism  is  drawing  the  flower  of 
Continental  Europe  into  its  circle  and  making  military- 
education  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences  in  the 
formation  of  characters  and  ideals. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  world  will  ever  greatly  differ 
about  the  essential  elements  of  right  and  wrong.  These 
things  lie  deep  in  human  nature  and  in  the  fundamental 
conditions  of  human  life.  The  changes  that  are  taking 
place,  and  which  seem  likely  to  strengthen  in  the  future, 
lie  chiefly  in  the  importance  attached  to  different  qualities. 

What  seems  to  be  useless  self-sacrifice  and  unnecessary 
suffering  is  as  much  as  possible  avoided.  The  strain  of 
sentiment  which  valued  suffering  in  itself  as  an  expiatory 
thing,  as  a  mode  of  following  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  as  a 
thing  to  be  for  its  own  sake  embraced  and  dwelt  upon, 
and  prolonged,  bears  a  very  great  part  in  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  Christian  lives,  and  especially  in  those  which 
were  formed  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
An  old  legend  tells  how  Christ  once  appeared  as  a  Man 
of  Sorrows  to  a  Catholic  Saint,  and  asked  him  what 
boon  he  would  most  desire.  '  Lord,'  was  the  reply,  *  that 
I  might  suffer  most.'  This  strain  runs  deeply  through 
the  whole  ascetic  literature  and  the  whole  monastic 
system  of  Catholicism,  and  outside  Catholicism  it  has 
been  sometimes  shown  by  a  reluctance  to  accept  the  aid 
of  anaesthetics,  which  partially  or  wholly  removed 
suffering  supposed  to  have  been  sent  by  Providence. 
The  history  of  the  use  of  chloroform  furnishes  striking 
illustrations  of  this.      Many  of  my  readers  may  remember 


64  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  French  monks  who  devoted  themselves  to  cultivating 
one  of  the  most  pestilential  spots  in  the  Eoman  Cam- 
pagna,  which  was  associated  with  an  ecclesiastical  legend, 
and  who  quite  unnecessarily  insisted  on  remaining  there 
during  the  season  when  such  a  residence  meant  little  less 
than  a  slow  suicide.  They  had,  as  they  were  accustomed 
to  say,  their  purgatory  upon  earth,  and  they  remained  till 
their  constitutions  were  hopelessly  shattered  and  they 
were  sent  to  die  in  their  own  land.  Touching  examples 
might  be  found  in  modern  times  of  men  who,  in  the  last 
extremes  of  disease  or  suffering,  scrupled,  through  re- 
ligious motives,  about  availing  themselves  of  the  simplest 
alleviations,^  and  something  of  the  same  feeling  is  shown 
in  the  desire  to  prolong  to  the  last  possible  moment 
hopeless  and  agonising  disease.  All  this  is  manifestly  and 
rapidly  disappearing.  To  endure  with  patience  and 
resignation  inevitable  suffering  ;  to  encounter  courageously 

*  The  following  beautiful  passage  from  a  funeral  sermon  by  Newman 
is  an  example :  '  One  should  have  thought  that  a  life  so  innocent, 
so  active,  so  holy,  I  might  say  so  faultless  from  first  to  last,  might  have 
been  spared  the  visitation  of  any  long  and  severe  penance  to  bring  it  to  an 
end ;  but  in  order  doubtless  to  show  us  how  vile  and  miserable  the  best  of 
us  are  in  ourselves  .  .  .  and  moreover  to  give  us  a  pattern  how  to  bear 
suffering  ourselves,  and  to  increase  the  merits  and  to  hasten  and  brighten 
the  crown  of  this  faithful  servant  of  his  Lord,  it  pleased  Almighty  God  to 
send  upon  him  a  disorder  which  during  the  last  six  years  fought  with  him, 
mastered  him,  and  at  length  has  destroyed  him,  so  far  that  is  as  death  now 
has  power  to  destroy.  ...  It  is  for  those  who  came  near  him  year  after 
year  to  store  up  the  many  words  and  deeds  of  resignation,  love  and 
humility  which  that  long  penance  elicited.  These  meritorious  acts  are 
written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  and  they  have  followed  him  whither  he  is  gone. 
They  multiplied  and  grew  in  strength  and  perfection  as  his  trial  proceeded  ; 
and  they  were  never  so  striking  as  at  its  close.  When  a  friend  visited  him 
in  the  last  week,  he  found  he  had  scrupled  at  allowing  his  temples  to  be 
moistened  with  some  refreshing  waters,  and  had  with  diJQ&culty  been 
brought  to  give  his  consent ;  he  said  he  feared  it  was  too  great  a  luxury. 
When  the  same  friend  offered  him  some  liquid  to  allay  his  distressing 
thirst  his  answer  was  the  same.' — Sermon  at  the  funeral  of  the  Right  Rev. 
Henry  Weedall,  pp.  19,  20. 


GOETHE'S  VIEW  OF  LIFE  66 

dangers  and  suffering  for  some  worthy  and  useful  end,"^ 
ranks,  indeed,  as  high  as  it  ever  did,  in  the  ethics  of  the 
century,  but  suffering  for  its  own  sake  is  no  longer  valued, 
and  it  is  deemed  one  of  the  first  objects  of  a  wise  life  to 
restrict  and  diminish  it. 

No  one,  I  think,  has  seen  more  clearly  or  described 
more  vividly  than  Goethe  the  direction  in  which  in 
modem  times  the  current  of  Morals  is  flowing.  His 
philosophy  is  a  terrestrial  philosophy,  and  the  old  theo- 
logians would  have  said  that  it  allowed  the  second  Table 
of  the  Law  altogether  to  supersede  or  eclipse  the  first. 
It  was  said  of  him  with  much  truth  that  *  repugnance  to 
the  supernatural  was  an  inherent  part  of  his  mind.'  To 
turn  away  from  useless  and  barren  speculations ;  to  per- 
sistently withdraw  our  thoughts  from  the  unknowable, 
the  inevitable,  and  the  irreparable ;  to  concentrate  them 
on  the  immediate  present  and  on  the  nearest  duty;  to 
waste  no  moral  energy  on  excessive  introspection  or  self- 
abasement  or  self-reproach,  but  to  make  the  cultivation 
and  the  wise  use  of  all  our  powers  the  supreme  ideal  and 
end  of  our  lives ;  to  oppose  labour  and  study  to  affliction 
and  regret ;  to  keep  at  a  distance  gloomy  thoughts  and 
exaggerated  anxieties ;  '  to  see  the  individual  in  connection 
and  co-operation  with  the  whole,'  and  to  look  upon  effort 
and  action  as  the  main  elements  both  of  duty  and  happi- 
ness, was  the  lesson  which  he  continually  taught.  '  The 
mind  endowed  with  active  powers,  and  keeping  with  a 
practical  object  to  the  task  that  lies  nearest,  is  the 
worthiest  there  is  on  earth.'  '  Character  consists  in  a 
man  steadily  pursuing  the  things  of  which  he  feels  him- 
self capable.'  *  Try  to  do  your  duty  and  you  will  know 
what  you  are  worth.'  '  Piety  is  not  an  end  but  a  means  ; 
a  means  of  attaining  the  highest  culture  by  the  purest 


66  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

tranquillity  of  soul.'  '  We  are  not  bom  to  solve  the 
problems  of  the  world,  but  to  find  out  where  the  problem 
begins  and  then  to  keep  within  the  limits  of  what  we  can 
grasp.' 

To  cultivate  sincere  love  of  truth  and  clear  and  definite 
conceptions,  and  divest  ourselves  as  much  as  possible 
from  prejudices,  fanaticisms,  superstitions,  and  exaggera- 
tion ;  to  take  wide,  sound,  tolerant,  many-sided  views  of 
life,  stands  in  his  eyes  in  the  forefront  of  ethics.  '  Let  it 
be  your  earnest  endeavour  to  use  words  coinciding  as 
closely  as  possible  with  what  we  feel,  see,  think,  experi- 
ence, imagine,  and  reason;'  *  remove  by  plain  and  honest 
purpose  false,  irrelevant  and  futile  ideas.'     *  The  truest 

■  liberality  is  appreciation.'     *  Love  of  truth  shows  itself  in 
this,  that  a  man  knows  how  to  find  and  value  the  good  in 

I  everything.'  ^ 

In  the  eyes  of  this  school  of  thought  one  of  the  great 
vices  of  the  old  theological  type  of  ethics  was  that  it  was 
unduly  negative.  It  thought  much  more  of  the  avoid- 
ance of  sin  than  of  the  performance  of  duty.  The  more 
we  advance  in  knowledge  the  more  we  shall  come  to 
judge  men  in  the  spirit  of  the  parable  of  the  talents ;  that 
is  by  the  net  result  of  their  lives,  by  their  essential  un- 
selfishness, by  the  degree  in  which  they  employ  and  the 
objects  to  which  they  direct  their  capacities  and  oppor- 
tunities. The  staple  of  moral  life  becomes  much  less  a 
matter  of  small  scruples,  of  minute  self-examination,  of 
extreme  stress  laid  upon  flaws  of  character  and  conduct 
that  have  little  or  no  bearing  upon  active  life.  A  life  of 
idleness  will  be  regarded  with  much  less  tolerance  than 
at  present.     Men  will  grow  less  introspective  and  more 

'  See  the  excellent  little  book  of   Mr.  Bailey  Saunders,  called   The 
Maxims  and  Reflections  of  Goethe. 


CONSCIENTIOUS  EXAGGERATIONS  57 

objective,  and  useful  action  will  become  more  and  more? 
the  guiding  principle  of  morals.  \ 

In  theory  this  will  probably  be  readily  admitted,  but 
every  good  observer  will  find  that  it  involves  a  consider- 
able change  in  the  point  of  view.  A  life  of  habitual 
languor  and  idleness,  with  no  faculties  really  cultivated 
and  with  no  result  that  makes  a  man  missed  when  he  has 
passed  away,  may  be  spent  without  any  act  which  the 
world  calls  vicious,  and  is  quite  compatible  with  much 
charm  of  temper  and  demeanour  and  with  a  complete 
freedom  from  violent  and  aggressive  selfishness.  Such 
a  life  in  the  eyes  of  many  moralists  would  rank  much 
higher  than  a  life  of  constant,  honourable  self-sacrificing 
labour  for  the  good  of  others  which  was  at  the  same  time 
flawed  by  some  positive  vice.  Yet  the  life  which  seems  , 
to  be  comparatively  blameless  has  in  truth  wholly  missed, 
while  the  other  life,  in  spite  of  all  its  defects,  has  largely 
attained  what  should  be  the  main  object  of  a  human  life, 
the  full  development  and  useful  employment  of  whatever  I 
powers  we  possess.  There  are  men,  indeed,  in  whom  an  | 
over-sensitive  conscience  is  even  a  paralysing  thing,  which 
by  suggesting  constant  petty  and  ingenious  scruples  holds 
them  back  from  useful  action.  It  is  a  moral  infirmity 
corresponding  to  that  exaggerated  intellectual  fastidious- 
ness which  so  often  makes  an  intellectual  life  almost 
wholly  barren,  or  to  that  excessive  tendency  to  look  on 
all  sides  of  a  question  and  to  realise  the  dangers  and 
drawbacks  of  any  course  which  not  unfrequently  in 
moments  of  difficulty  paralyses  the  actions  of  public 
men.  Sometimes,  under  the  strange  and  subtle  bias 
of  the  will,  this  excessive  conscientiousness  will  be  un- 
consciously fostered  in  inert  and  sluggish  natures  which 
are  constitutionally  disinclined  to  effort.     The  main  lines 


68  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

of  duty  in  the  great  relations  of  life  are  sufficiently 
obvious,  and  the  casuistry  which  multiplies  cases  of  con- 
science and  invents  unreal  and  factitious  duties  is  apt  to 
be  rather  an  impediment  than  a  furtherance  to  a  noble 
life. 

It  is  probable  that  as  the  world  goes  on  morals  will 
move  more  and  more  in  the  direction  I  have  described. 
f  There  will  be  at  the  same  time  a  steadily  increasing  ten- 
I  dency  to  judge  moral  qualities  and  courses  of   conduct 
f  mainly  by  the  degree  in  which  they  promote  or  diminish 
human  happiness.    Enthusiasm  and  self-sacrifice  for  some 
\  object  which  has  no  real  bearing  on  the  welfare  of  man 
will  become  rarer  and  will  be  less  respected,  and  the  con- 
demnation that  is  passed  on  acts  that  are  recognised  as 
wrong  will  be  much  more  proportioned  than  at  present  to 
the  injury  they  inflict.     Some  things,  such   as  excessive 
luxury  of  expenditure  and  the  improvidence  of  bringing 
into  the  world  children  for  whom  no  provision  has  been 
made,  which  can  now  scarcely  be  said  to  enter  into  the 
teaching  of  moralists,  or  at  least  of  churches,  may  one 
day  be  looked  upon  as  graver  offences  than  some  that  are 
in  the  penal  code. 


ACTION   AND   MORALS  59 


CHAPTEK  VI 

The  tendency  to  regard  morals  rather  in  their  positive  s 
than  their  negative  aspects,  and  to  estimate  men  by  the  ^ 
good  they  do  in  the  world,  is  a  healthy  element  in  modem 
life.     A  strong  sense  of  the  obligation  of  a  full,  active, 
and  useful  life  is  the  best  safeguard  both  of  individual  and 
national  morals  at  a  time  when  the  dissolution  or  enf  eeble- 
ment  of  theological  beliefs  is  disturbing  the  foundations 
on  which  most  current  moral  teaching  has  been  based. 
In  the  field  of  morals  action  holds  a  much  larger  place 
,     than  reasoning — a  larger  place  even  in  elucidating  our 
\    difficulties  and  illuminating  the  path  on  which  we  should 
\  go.     It  is  by  the  active  pursuit  of  an  immediate  duty  that 
\  the  vista  of  future  duties  becomes  most  clear,  and  those 
\  who  are  most  immersed  in  active  duties  are  usually  little 
troubled  with  the  perplexities  of  hfe,  or  with  minute  and 
paralysing  scruples.     A  public  opinion  which  discourages 
idleness  and  places  high  the  standard  of  public  duty  is 
especially  valuable  in  an  age  when  the  tendency  to  value 
wealth,  and  to  measure  dignity  by  wealth,  has  greatly 
increased,  and  when  wealth  in  some  of  its  most  important 
forms  has  become  wholly  dissociated  from  special  duties. 
The  duties  of  the  landlord  who  is  surrounded  by  a  poor 
and,  in  some  measure,  dependent  tenantry — the  duties  of 
the   head  of   a  great  factory  or  shop  who  has  a  large 
number  of  workmen  or  dependents  in  his  employment. 


60  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

are  sufficiently  obvious,  though  even  in  these  spheres  the 
tie  of  duty  has  been  greatly  relaxed  by  the  growing  spirit 
of  independence,  which  makes  each  class  increasingly 
jealous  of  the  interference  of  others,  and  by  the  growing 
tendency  of  legislation  to  regulate  all  relations  of  business 
and  contracts  by  definite  law  instead  of  leaving  them, 
as  in  the  past,  to  voluntary  action.  But  there  are  large 
classes  of  fortunes  which  are  wholly,  or  almost  wholly, 
dissociated  from  special  and  definite  duties.  The  vast  and 
ever-increasing  multitude  whose  incomes  are  derived  from 
national,  or  provincial,  or  municipal  debts,  or  who  are 
shareholders  or  debenture-holders  in  great  commercial 
and  industrial  undertakings,  have  little  or  no  practical 
control  over,  or  interest  in,  those  from  whom  their  for- 
tunes are  derived.  The  multiplication  of  such  fortunes  is 
one  of  the  great  characteristics  of  our  time,  and  it  brings 
with  it  grave  dangers.  Such  fortunes  give  unrivalled 
opportunities  of  luxurious  idleness,  and  as  in  themselves 
they  bring  little  or  no  social  influence  or  position,  those 
who  possess  them  are  peculiarly  tempted  to  seek  such  a 
position  by  an  ostentation  of  wealth  and  luxury  which 
has  a  profoundly  vulgarising  and  demoralising  influence 
upon  Society.  The  tendency  of  idleness  to  lead  to  immo- 
rality has  long  been  a  commonplace  of  moralists.  Perhaps 
our  own  age  has  seen  more  clearly  than  those  that  pre- 
ceded it  that  complete  and  habitual  idleness  is  immorality, 
and  that  when  the  circumstances  of  his  life  do  not  assign 
to  a  man  a  definite  sphere  of  work  it  is  his  first  duty  to 
find  it  for  himself.  It  has  been  happily  said  that  in  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  young  men  in 
England  who  were  really  busy  affected  idleness,  and  at 
the  close  of  the  reign  young  men  who  are  really  idle 
pretend  to   be   busy.     In  my  own  opinion,  a  dispropor- 


FALSE   IDEALS  61 

tionate  amount  of  English  energy  takes  political  forms, 
and  there  is  a  dangerous  exaggeration  in  the  prevailing 
tendency  to  combat  all  social  and  moral  abuses  by  Acts  of 
Parliament.  But  there  are  multitudes  of  other  and  less 
obtrusive  spheres  of  work  adapted  to  all  grades  of  intellect 
and  to  many  types  of  character,  in  which  men  who  possess 
the  inestimable  boon  of  leisure  can  find  abundant  and 
useful  fields  for  the  exercise  of  their  powers. 

The  rectification  of  moral  judgments  is  one  of  the  ) 
most  important  elements  of  civilisation  ;  it  is  upon  this 
that  the  possibility  of  moral  progress  on  a  large  scale 
chiefly  depends.  Few  things  pervert  men  more  than  the 
habit  of  regarding  as  enviable  persons  or  qualities  injurious , 
to  Society.  The  most  obvious  example  is  the  passionate' 
admiration  bestowed  on  a  brilliant  conqueror,  which  is 
often  quite  irrespective  of  the  justice  of  his  wars  and  of 
the  motives  that  actuated  him.  This  false  moral  feeling 
has  acquired  such  a  strength  that  overwhelming  military 
power  almost  certainly  leads  to  a  career  of  ambition. 
Perverted  public  opinion  is  the  main  cause.  Glory,  not 
interest,  is  the  lure,  or  at  least  the  latter  would  be  power- 
less if  it  were  not  accompanied  by  the  former — if  the 
execration  of  mankind  naturally  followed  unscrupulous 
aggression. 

Another  and  scarcely  less  flagrant  instance  of  the 
worship  of  false  ideals  is  to  be  found  in  the  fierce  compe- 
tition of  luxury  and  ostentation  which  characterises  the 
more  wealthy  cities  of  Europe  and  America.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  in  a  single  festival  in  London  or 
New  York  sums  are  often  expended  in  the  idlest  and 
most  ephemeral  ostentation  which  might  have  revived 
industry,  or  extinguished  pauperism,  or  alleviated  suffering 
over  a  vast  area.    The  question  of  expenditure  on  luxuries 


62  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

is  no  doubt  a  question  of  degree  which  cannot  be  reduced 
to  strict  rule,  and  there  are  many  who  will  try  to  justify 
the  most  ostentatious  expenditure  on  the  ground  of  the 
employment  it  gives  and  of  other  incidental  advantages  it 
is  supposed  to  produce.  But  nothing  in  political  economy 
is  more  certain  than  that  the  vast  and  ever-increasing 
expenditure  on  the  luxury  of  ostentation  in  modern 
societies  by  withdrawing  great  masses  of  capital  from 
productive  labour  is  a  grave  economical  evil,  and  there  is 
probably  no  other  form  of  expenditure  which,  in  propor- 
tion to  its  amount,  gives  so  little  real  pleasure  and  confers 
so  little  real  good.  Its  evil  in  setting  up  material  and 
base  standards  of  excellence,  in  stimulating  the  worst 
passions  that  grow  out  of  an  immoderate  love  of  wealth, 
in  ruining  many  who  are  tempted  into  a  competition 
which  they  are  unable  to  support,  can  hardly  be  over- 
rated. It  is  felt  in  every,  rank  in  raising  the  standard  of 
conventional  expenses,  excluding  from  much  social  inter- 
course many  who  are  admirably  fitted  to  adorn  it,  and 
introducing  into  all  society  a  lower  and  more  material 
tone.  Nor  are  these  its  only  consequences.  Wealth 
which  is  expended  in  multiplying  and  elaborating  real 
comforts,  or  even  in  pleasures  which  produce  enjoyment 
at  all  proportionate  to  their  cost,  will  never  excite  serious 
indignation.  It  is  the  colossal  waste  of  the  means  of 
human  happiness  in  the  most  selfish  and  most  vulgar 
forms  of  social  advertisement  and  competition  that  gives 
a  force  and  almost  a  justification  to  anarchical  passions 
which  menace  the  whole  future  of  our  civilisation.  It  is 
such  things  that  stimulate  class  hatreds  and  deepen  class 
divisions,  and  if  the  law  of  opinion  does  not  interfere  to 
check  them  they  will  one  day  bring  down  upon  the 
society  that  encourages  them  a  signal  and  well-merited 
retribution. 


IDEALS   THE   TEST   OF   CHARACTER  63 

A  more  recognised,  though  probably  not  really  more 
pernicious  example  of  false  ideals,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
glorification  of  the  demi-monde^  which  is  so  conspicuous 
in  some  societies  and  literatures.  In  a  healthy  state  of 
opinion,  the  public,  ostentatious  appearance  of  &uch 
persons,  without  any  concealment  of  their  character,  in 
the  great  concourse  of  fashion  and  among  the  notabilities 
of  the  State,  would  appear  an  intolerable  scandal,  and  it 
becomes  much  worse  when  they  give  the  tone  to  fashion 
and  become  the  centres  and  the  models  of  large  and  by 
no  means  undistinguished  sections  of  Society.  The  evils 
springing  from  this  public  glorification  of  the  class  are 
immeasurably  greater  than  the  evils  arising  from  its 
existence.  The  standard  of  popular  morals  is  debased. 
Temptation  in  its  most  seductive  form  is  forced  upon 
inflammable  natures,  and  the  most  pernicious  of  all  lessons 
is  taught  to  poor,  honest,  hard-working  women.  It  is 
indeed  wonderful  that  in  societies  where  this  evil  pre- 
vails so  much  virtue  should  still  exist  among  graceful, 
attractive  women  of  the  shopkeeping  and  servant  class 
when  they  continually  see  before  them  members  of  their 
own  class,  by  preferring  vice  to  virtue,  rising  at  once  to 
wealth,  luxury  and  idleness,  and  even  held  up  as  objects 
of  admiration  or  imitation. 

In  judging  wisely  the  characters  of  men,  one  of  the 
first  things  to  be  done  is  to  understand  their  ideals.  Try 
to  find  out  what  kind  of  men  or  of  life ;  what  qualities, 
what  positions  seem  to  them  the  most  desirable.  Men 
do  not  always  fully  recognise  their  own  ideals,  for  educa- 
tion and  the  conventionalities  of  Society  oblige  them  to 
assert  a  preference  for  that  which  may  really  have  no 
root  in  their  minds.  But  by  a  careful  examination  it  is 
usually  possible  to  ascertain  what  persons  or  qualities  or 


64  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

circumstances  or  gifts  exercise  a  genuine,  spontaneous, 
magnetic  power  over  them — whether  they  really  value 
supremely  rank  or  position,  or  money,  or  beauty,  or  in- 
tellect, or  superiority  of  character.  If  you  know  the  ideal 
of  a  man  you  have  obtained  a  true  key  to  his  nature. 
The  broad  lines  of  his  character,  the  permanent  tendencies 
of  his  imagination,  his  essential  nobility  or  meanness,  are 
thus  disclosed  more  effectually  than  by  any  other  means. 
A  man  with  high  ideals,  who  admires  wisely  and  nobly, 
is  never  wholly  base  though  he  may  fall  into  great  vices. 
A  man  who  worships  the  baser  elements  is  in  truth  an 
idolater  though  he  may  have  never  bowed  before  an  image 
of  stone. 

The  human  mind  has  much  more  power  of  distin- 
guishing between  right  and  wrong,  and  between  true  and 
false,  than  of  estimating  with  accuracy  the  comparative 
gravity  of  opposite  evils.  It  is  nearly  always  right  in 
judging  between  right  and  wrong.  It  is  generally  wrong 
in  estimating  degrees  of  guilt,  and  the  root  of  its  error  lies 
in  the  extreme  difficulty  of  putting  ourselves  into  the  place 
of  those  whose  characters  or  circumstances  are  radically 
different  from  our  own.  This  want  of  imagination  acts 
widely  on  our  judgment  of  what  is  good  as  well  as  of 
what  is  bad.  Few  men  have  enough  imagination  to 
realise  types  of  excellence  altogether  differing  from  their 
own.  It  is  this,  much  more  than  vanity,  that  leads  them 
to  esteem  the  types  of  excellence  to  which  they  themselves 
approximate  as  the  best,  and  tastes  and  habits  that  are 
altogether  incongruous  with  their  own  as  futile  and  con- 
temptible. It  is,  perhaps,  most  difficult  of  all  to  realise 
the  difference  of  character  and  especially  of  moral  sensibi- 
lity produced  by  a  profound  difference  of  circumstances. 
This  difficulty  largely  falsifies  our  judgments  of  the  past, 


ALLOWANCE   FOR  CIRCUMSTANCES  65 

and  it  is  the  reason  why  a  powerful  imagination  enabling 
us  to  realise  very  various  characters  and  very  remote 
circumstances  is  one  of  the  first  necessities  of  a  great 
historian.  Historians  rarely  make  sufficient  allowance  for 
the  degree  in  which  the  judgments  and  dispositions  even 
of  the  best  men  are  coloured  by  the  moral  tone  of  the 
time,  society  and  profession  in  which  they  lived.  Yet  it 
is  probable  that  on  the  whole  we  estimate  more  justly  the 
characters  of  the  past  than  of  the  present.  No  one  would 
judge  the  actions  of  Charlemagne  or  of  his  contemporaries 
by  the  strict  rules  of  nineteenth-century  ethics.  We  feel 
that  though  they  committed  undoubted  crimes,  these 
crimes  are  at  least  indefinitely  less  heinous  than  they 
would  have  been  under  the  wholly  different  circumstances 
and  moral  atmosphere  of  our  own  day.  Yet  we  seldom 
apply  this  method  of  reasoning  to  the  different  strata  of 
the  same  society.  Men  who  have  been  themselves  brought 
up  amid  all  the  comforts  and  all  the  moralising  and 
restraining  influences  of  a  refined  society,  will  often  judge 
the  crimes  of  the  wretched  pariahs  of  civilisation  as  if 
their  acts  were  in  no  degree  palliated  by  their  position. 
They  say  to  themselves  how  guilty  should  I  have  been 
if  I  had  done  this  thing,  and  their  verdict  is  quite  just 
according  to  this  statement  of  the  case.  They  realise  the 
nature  of  the  act.  They  utterly  fail  to  realise  the  char- 
acter and  circumstances  of  the  actor. 

And  yet  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
difference  between  the  position  of  such  a  critic  and  that 
of  the  children  of  drunken,  ignorant,  and  profligate 
parents,  bom  to  abject  poverty  in  the  slums  of  our  great 
cities.  From  their  earliest  childhood  drunkenness,  blas- 
phemy, dishonesty,  prostitution,  indecency  of  every  form 
are  their  most  familiar  experiences.  All  the  social  influences, 

F 


x}^ 


66  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

such  as  they  are,  are  influences  of  vice.  As  they  grow  up 
Life  seems  to  them  to  present  little  more  than  the  alterna- 
tive of  hard,  ill-paid,  and  at  the  same  time  precarious 
labour,  probably  ending  in  the  poor-house,  or  crime  with 
its  larger  and  swifter  gains,  and  its  intervals  of  coarse 
pleasure  probably,  though  not  certainly,  followed  by  the 
prison  or  an  early  death.  They  see  indeed,  like  figures 
in  a  dream,  or  like  beings  of  another  world,  the  wealthy 
and  the  luxurious  spending  their  wealth  and  their  time  in 
many  kinds  of  enjoyment,  but  to  the  very  poor  pleasure 
scarcely  comes  except  in  the  form  of  the  gin  palace  or 
perhaps  the  low  music  hall.  And  in  many  cases  they 
have  come  into  this  reeking  atmosphere  of  temptation  and 
vice  with  natures  debased  and  enfeebled  by  a  long  succession 
of  vicious  hereditary  influences,  with  weak  wills,  with  no 
faculties  of  mind  or  character  that  can  respond  to  any 
healthy  ambition  ;  with  powerful  inborn  predispositions 
to  evil.  The  very  mould  of  their  features,  the  very  shape 
of  their  skulls,  marks  them  out  as  destined  members 
of  the  criminal  class.  Even  here,  no  doubt,  there  is  a 
difference  between  right  and  wrong ;  there  is  scope  for 
the  action  of  free  will;  there  are  just  causes  of  praise 
and  blame,  and  Society  rightly  protects  itself  by  severe 
penalties  against  the  crimes  that  are  most  natural ;  but 
what  human  judge  can  duly  measure  the  scale  of  moral 
guilt  ?  or  what  comparison  can  there  be  between  the 
crimes  that  are  engendered  by  such  circumstances  and 
those  which  spring  up  in  the  homes  of  refined  and  well- 
regulated  comfort  ? 

Nor  indeed  even  in  this  latter  case  is  a  really  accurate 
judgment  possible.  Men  are  born  into  the  world  with 
both  wills  and  passions  of  varying  strength,  though  in 
mature  life  the  strength  or  weakness  of  each  is  largely 


ALLOWANCES  FOR   CHARACTER  67 

due  to  their  own  conduct.     With  different  characters  the 
same    temptation,    operating    under   the   same    external 
circumstances,   has   enormously   different   strength,    and 
very  few  men  can  fully  realise  the  strength  of  a  passion 
which   they  have   never    themselves    experienced.      To 
repeat  an  illustration  I  have  already  used,  how  difficult  is 
it  for  a  constitutionally  sober  man  to  form  in  his  own 
mind  an  adequate  conception  of  the  force  of  the  tempta- 
tion of  drink  to  a  dipsomaniac,  or  for  a  passionless  man 
to  conceive  rightly  the  temptations  of  a  profoundly  sensual 
nature  !     I  have  spoken  in  a  former  chapter  of  the  force 
with  which  bodily  conditions  act  upon  happiness.     Their 
influence  on  morals  is  not  less  terrible.     There  are  diseases 
well  known  to  physicians  which  make  the  most  placid 
temper   habitually  irritable ;  give  a  morbid  turn  to  the 
healthiest  disposition;  fill  the  purest  mind  with  unholy 
thoughts.     There  are  others  which  destroy  the  force  of  the 
strongest  will  and  take  from  character  all  balance  and 
self-control.^     It  often  happens  that  we  have  long  been 
blaming  a  man  for  manifest  faults  of  character  till  at  last 
suicide,  or  the  disclosure  of  some  grave  bodily  or  mental 
disease  which  has  long  been  working  unperceived,  explains 
his  faults  and  turns  our  blame  into  pity.     In  madness  the 
whole  moral  character  is  sometimes  reversed  and  tendencies 
which  have  been  in  sane  life  dormant  or  repressed  become 
suddenly  supreme.      In  such  cases  we   all  acknowledge 
that  there  is  no  moral  responsibility,  but  madness,  with 
its  illusions  and  irresistible  impulses,  and  idiocy  with  its 
complete  suspension  of  the  will  and  of  the  judgment,  are 
neither  of  them,  as  lawyers  would  pretend,  clearly  defined 
states,  marked   out   by  sharp    and   well-cut   boundaries, 
wholly  distinct  from  sanity.     There  are  incipient  stages  ; 

*  See  Ribot,  Les  Maladies  de  la  Volonti,  pp.  92,  116-119. 

F  2 


68  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

there  are  gradual  approximations  ;  there  are  twilight  states 
between  sanity  and  insanity  which  are  clearly  recognised 
not  only  by  experts  but  by  all  sagacious  men  of  the  world. 
There  are  many  who  are  not  sufficiently  mad  to  be  shut 
up  or  to  be  deprived  of  the  management  of  their  properties, 
or  to  be  exempted  from  punishment  if  they  have  committed 
a  crime,  but  who,  in  the  common  expressive  phrase,  *  are 
not  all  there  ' — whose  eccentricities,  illusions  and  caprices 
are  on  the  verge  of  madness,  whose  judgments  are  hope- 
lessly disordered;  whose  wills,  though  not  completely 
atrophied,  are  manifestly  diseased.  In  questions  of  pro- 
perty, in  questions  of  crime,  in  questions  of  family  arrange- 
ments, such  persons  cause  the  gravest  perplexity,  nor  will 
any  wise  man  judge  them  by  the  same  moral  standard  as 
well-balanced  and  well-developed  natures. 

The  inference  to  be  drawn  from  such  facts  is  certainly 
not  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  free  will  and  personal 
responsibility,  nor  yet  that  we  have  no  power  of  judging 
the  acts  of  others  and  distinguishing  among  our  fellow-men 
between  the  good  and  the  bad.  The  true  lesson  is  the 
extreme  fallibility  of^^ur .  moral  judgments  whenever  w^, 
attempt  to  measure  degrees  of  guilt.  Sometimes  men  are 
even  unjust  to  their  own  past  from  their  incapacity  in 
age  of  realising  the  force  of  the  temptations  they  had 
experienced  in  youth.  On  the  other  hand,  increased  know- 
ledge of  the  world  tends  to  make  us  more  sensible  of  the 
vast  differences  between  the  moral  circumstances  of  men, 
and  therefore  less  confident  and  more  indulgent  in  our 
judgments  of  others.  There  are  men  whose  cards  in  life 
are  so  bad,  whose  temptations  to  vice,  either  from  cir- 
cumstances or  inborn  character,  seem  so  overwhelming, 
that,  though  we  may  punish,  and  in  a  certain  sense 
blame,  we  can  scarcely  look  on  them  as  more  responsible 


PROVINCE   OF   THE   CRIMINAL   CODE  69 

than  some  noxious  wild  beast.  Among  the  terrible  facts 
of  life  none  is  indeed  more  terrible  than  this.  Every 
believer  in  the  wise  government  of  the  world  must  have 
sometimes  realised  with  a  crushing  or  at  least  a  staggering 
force  the  appalling  injustices  of  life  as  shown  in  the 
enormous  differences  in  the  distribution  of  unmerited 
happiness  and  misery.  But  the  disparity  of  moral  cir- 
cumstances is  not  less.  It  has  shaken  the  faith  of  many. 
It  has  even  led  some  to  dream  of  a  possible  Heaven  for 
the  vicious  where  those  who  are  born  into  the  world  with 
a  physical  constitution  rendering  them  fierce  or  cruel,  or 
sensual,  or  cowardly,  may  be  freed  from  the  nature  which 
was  the  cause  of  their  vice  and  their  suffering  upon  earth ; 
where  due  allowance  may  be  made  for  the  differences  of 
circumstances  which  have  plunged  one  man  deeper  and 
ever  deeper  into  crime,  and  enabled  another,  who  was 
not  really  better  or  worse,  to  pass  through  life  with  no 
serious  blemish,  and  to  rise  higher  and  higher  in  the  moral 
scale. 

Imperfect,  however,  as  is  our  power  of  judging  others, 
it  is  a  power  we  are  all  obliged  to  exercise.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  exclude  the  considerations  of  moral  guilt  and  of 
palliating  or  aggravating  circumstances  from  the  penal 
code,  and  from  the  administration  of  justice,  though  it 
cannot  be  too  clearly  maintained  that  the  criniinal  code 
is  not^  coextensive  jwith  the  moral  code,  and  that  many 
things  which  are  profoundly  immoral  lie  beyond  its  scope. 
On  the  whole  it  should  be  as  much  as  possible  confined 
to  acts  by  which  men  directly  injure  others.  In  the  case 
of  adult  men  private  vices,  vices  by  which  no  one  is 
directly  affected,  except  by  his  own  free  will,  and  in  which 
the  elements  of  force  or  fraud  are  not  present,  should  not 
be  brought  within  its  range.     This  ideal,  it  is  true,  cannot 


70  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

be  fully  attained.  The  Legislator  must  take  into  account 
the  strong  pressure  of  public  opinion.  It  is  sometimes 
true  that  a  penal  law  may  arrest,  restrict,  or  prevent  the 
revival  of  some  private  vice  without  producing  any 
countervailing  evil.  But  the  presumption  is  against  all 
laws  which  punish  the  voluntary  acts  of  adult  men  when 
those  acts  injure  no  one  except  themselves.  The  social 
censure,  or  the  judgment  of  opinion,  rightly  extends 
much  further,  though  it  is  often  based  on  very  imperfect 
knowledge  or  realisation.  It  is  probable  that,  on  the 
whole,  opinion  judges  too  severely  the  crimes  of  passion 
and  of  drink,  as  well  as  those  which  spring  from  the 
pressure  of  great  poverty  and  are  accompanied  by  great 
ignorance.  The  causes  of  domestic  anarchy  are  usually 
of  such  an  intimate  nature  and  involve  so  many  unknown 
or  imperfectly  realised  elements  of  aggravation  or  pallia- 
tion that  in  most  cases  the  less  men  attempt  to  judge 
them  the  better.  On  the  other  hand,  public  opinion  is 
usually  far  too  lenient  in  judging  crimes  of  ambition, 
cupidity,  envy,  malevolence,  and  callous  selfishness ;  the 
crimes  of  ill-gotten  and  ill-used  wealth,  especially  in 
the  many  cases  in  which  those  crimes  are  unpunished 
by  law. 

It  is  a  mere  commonplace  of  morals  that  in  the  path 
of  evil  it  is  the  first  step  that  costs  the  most.  The  shame, 
the  repugnance,  and  the  remorse  which  attend  the  first 
crime  speedily  fade,  and  on  every  repetition  the  habit  of 
evil  grows  stronger.  A  process  of  the  same  kind  passes 
over  our  judgments.  Few  things  are  more  curious  than 
to  observe  how  the  eye  accommodates  itself  to  a  new 
fashion  of  dress,  however  unbecoming,  how  speedily  men, 
or  at  least  women,  will  adopt  a  new  and  artificial  standard 
and    instinctively    and   unconsciously   admire   or  blame 


V 

DETERIORATION  OF   CHARACTER  7] 

according  to  this  standard  and  not  according  to  any- 
genuine  sense  of  beauty  or  the  reverse.  Few  persons, 
however  pure  may  be  their  natural  taste,  can  Hve  long 
amid  vulgar  and  vulgarising  surroundings  without  losing 
something  of  the  delicacy  of  their  taste  and  learning  to 
accept,  if  not  with  pleasure,  at  least  with  acquiescence, 
things  from  which  under  other  circumstances  they  would 
have  recoiled.  In  the  same  way,  both  individuals  and 
societies  accommodate  themselves  but  too  readily  to  lower 
moral  levels,  and  a  constant  vigilance  is  needed  to  detect 
the  forms  or  directions  in  which  individual  and  national 
character  insensibly  deteriorate. 


7a  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTEK  VII 

It  is  impossible  for  a  physician  to  prescribe  a  rational 
regimen  for  a  patient  unless  he  has  formed  some  clear 
conception  of  the  natm:e  of  his  constitution  and  of  the 
morbid  influences  to  which  it  is  inclined ;  and  in  judging 
the  wisdom  of  various  proposals  for  the  management  of 
character  we  are  at  once  met  by  the  initial  controversy 
about  the  goodness  or  the  depravity  of  human  nature. 
It  is  a  subject  on  which  extreme  exaggerations  have  pre- 
vailed. The  school  of  Kousseau,  which  dominated  on  the 
Continent  in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
represented  mankind  as  a  being  who  comes  into  existence 
essentially  good,  and  it  attributed  all  the  moral  evils  of 
the  world  not  to  any  innate  tendencies  to  vice  but  to 
superstition,  vicious  institutions,  misleading  education, 
a  badly  organised  society.  It  is  an  obvious  criticism  that 
if  human  nature  had  been  as  good  as  such  writers 
imagined,  these  corrupt  and  corrupting  influences  could 
never  have  grown  up,  or  at  least  could  never  have  obtained 
a  controlling  influence,  and  this  philosophy  became 
greatly  discredited  when  the  French  Kevolution,  which  it 
did  so  much  to  produce,  ended  in  the  unspeakable  horrors 
of  the  Reign  of  Terror  and  in  the  gigantic  carnage  of 
the  Napoleon  wars.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  large 
schools  of  theologians  who  represent  man  as  utterly  and 
fundamentally  depraved,  '  born  in  corruption,  inclined  to 


EXAGGERATIONS   OF   HUMAN   DEPRAVITY 


73 


evil,  incapable  by  himself  of  doing  good ;  '  totally  wrecked 
and  ruined  as  a  moral  being  by  the  catastrophe  in  Eden. 
There  are  also  moral  philosophers — usually  very  uncon- 
nected with  theology — who  deny  or  explain  away  all 
unselfish  elements  in  human  nature,  represent  man  as 
simply  governed  by  self-interest,  and  maintain  that  the 

I  whole  art  of  education  and  government  consists  of  a  judi- 
cious arrangement  of  selfish  motives,  making  the  interests 
of  the  individual  coincident  with  those  of  his  neighbours. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Society  never  could  have 
subsisted  if  this  view  of  human  nature  had  been  a  just 
one.  The  world  would  have  been  like  a  cage-full  of  wild 
beasts,  and  mankind  would  have  soon  perished  in  constant 
internecine  war. 

It  is  indeed  one  of  the  plainest  facts  of  human  nature 
that  such  a  view  of  mankind  is  aii  untrue  one.  Jealousy, 
envy,  animosities  and  selfishness  no  doubt  play  a  great 
part  in  life  and  disguise  themselves  under  many  specious 
forms,  and  the  cynical  moralist  w^as  not  wholly  wrong 
when  he  declared  that  'Virtue  would  not  go  so  far  if 
Vanity  did  not  keep  her  company,'  and  that  not  only  our 
crimes  but  even  many  of  what  are  deemed  our  best  acts 
may  be  traced  to  selfish  motives.  But  he  must  have  had 
a  strangely  unfortunate  experience  of  the  world  who  does 
not  recognise  the  enormous  exaggeration  of  the  pictures 
of  human  nature  that  are  conveyed  in  some  of  the  maxims 
of  La  Eochefoucauld  and  Schopenhauer.  They  tell  us 
that  friendship  is  a  mere  exchange  of  interests  in  which 
each  man  only  seeks  to  gain  something  from  the  other ; 
that  most  women  are  only  pure  because  they  are  un- 
tempted  and  regret  that  the  temptation  does  not  come  ; 

I  that  if  we  acknowledge  some  faults  it  is  in  order  to  per- 
suade ourselves  that  we  have  no  greater  ones,  or  in  order, 


74  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

by  our  confession,  to  regain  the  good  opinion  of  our 
neighbours  ;  that  if  we  praise  another  it  is  merely  that 
we  may  ourselves  in  turn  be  praised ;  that  the  tears  we 
shed  over  a  death-bed,  if  they  are  not  hypocritical  tears 
intended  only  to  impress  our  neighbours,  are  only  due  to 
our  conviction  that  we  have  ourselves  lost  a  source  of 
pleasure  or  of  gain;  that  envy  so  predominates  in  the 
world  that  it  is  only  men  of  inferior  intellect  or  women  of 
inferior  beauty  who  are  sincerely  liked  by  those  about 
them ;  that  all  virtue  is  an  egotistic  calculation,  conscious 
or  unconscious. 

Such  views  are  at  least  as  far  removed  from  truth  as 
the  roseate  pictures  of  Kousseau  and  St.  Pierre.  No  one 
can  look  with  an  unjaundiced  eye  upon  the  world  without 
perceiving  the  enormous  amount  of  disinterested,  self- 
sacrificing  benevolence  that  pervades  it ;  the  countless 
lives  that  are  spent  not  only  harmlessly  and  inoffensively 
but  also  in  the  constant  discharge  of  duties ;  in  constant 
and  often  painful  labour  for  the  good  of  others.  The 
better  section  of  the  Utilitarian  school  has  fully  recog- 
nised the  truth  that  human  nature  is  so  constituted  that 
a  great  proportion  of  its  enjoyment  depends  on  sympathy ; 
or,  in  other  words,  on  the  power  we  possess  of  entering 
into  and  sharing  the  happiness  of  others.  The  spectacle 
of  suffering  naturally  elicits  compassion.  Kindness  natu- 
rally produces  gratitude.  The  sympathies  of  men  naturally 
move  on  the  side  of  the  good  rather  than  of  the  bad. 
This  is  true  not  only  of  the  things  that  immediately  con- 
cern us  but  also  in  the  perfectly  disinterested  judgments 
we  form  of  the  events  of  history  or  of  the  characters 
in  fiction  and  poetry.  Great  exhibitions  of  heroism  and 
self-sacrifice  touch  a  genuine  chord  of  enthusiasm.  The 
affections  of  the  domestic  circle  are  the  rule  and  not  the 


OKIGIN   OF  EVIL  75 

exception ;  patriotism  can  elicit  great  outbursts  of  purely- 
unselfish  generosity  and  induce  multitudes  to  risk  or 
sacrifice  their  lives  for  causes  which  are  quite  other  than 
their  own  selfish  interests.  Human  nature  indeed  has  its 
moral  as  well  as  its  physical  needs,  and  naturally  and 
instinctively  seeks  some  object  of  interest  and  enthusiasm 
outside  itself. 

If  we  look  again  into  the  vice  and  sin  that  undoubtedly 
disfigure  the  world  we  shall  find  much  reason  to  believe 
ithat  what  is  exceptional  in  human  nature  is  not  the  evil 
tendency  but  the  restraining  conscience,  and  that  it  is 
chiefly  the  weakness  of  the  distinctively  human  quality 
;that  is  the  origin  of  the  evil.  It  is  impossible  indeed, 
iwith  the  knowledge  we  now  possess,  to  deny  to  animals 
some  measure  both  of  reason  and  of  the  moral  sense.  In 
addition  to  the  higher  instincts  of  parental  affection  and 
.devotion  which  are  so  clearly  developed  we  find  among 
[some  animals  undoubted  signs  of  remorse,  gratitude,  affec- 
'tion,  self-sacrifice.  Even  the  point  of  honour  which 
attaches  shame  to  some  things  and  pride  to  others  may 
.be  clearly  distinguished.  No  one  who  has  watched  the 
[more  intelligent  dog  can  question  this,  and  many  will 
maintain  that  in  some  animals,  though  both  good  and 
ibad  qualities  are  less  widely  developed  than  in  man,  the 
^proportion  of  the  good  to  the  evil  is  more  favourable  in 
the  animal  than  in  the  man.  At  the  same  time  in  the 
animal  world  desire  is  usually  followed  without  any  other 
restraint  than  fear,  while  in  man  it  is  largely  though 
[no  doubt  very  imperfectly  limited  by  moral  self-control. 
Most  crimes  spring  not  from  anything  wrong  in  the 
[original  and  primal  desire  but  from  the  imperfection  of 
'this  higher,  distinct  or  superadded  element  in  our  nature. 
The  crimes  of  dishonesty  and  envy,  when  duly  analysed, 


76  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

have  at  their  basis  simply  a  desire  for  the  desirable — a 
natural   and  inevitable   feeling.     What   is  absent  is  the 
restraint  which  makes  men  refrain  from  taking  or  trying 
to  take  desirable  things  that  belong  to  another.     Sensual 
faults  spring  from  a  perfectly  natural  impulse,  but  the 
restraint  which  confines  the  action  of  that  impulse  to 
defined   circumstances    is   wanting.      Much   too   of    the 
insensibility  and  hardness  of  the  world  is  due  to  a  simple 
want  of  imagination  which  prevents  us  from  adequately 
realising  the  sufferings  of  others.     The  predatory,  envious 
and  ferocious  feelings  that  disturb  mankind  operate  unre- 
strained through  the  animal  world,  though  man's  superior 
intelligence  gives  his  desires  a  special  character  and  a 
greatly  increased  scope,  and  introduces  them  into  spheres 
i  inconceivable   to   the   animal.     Immoderate  and  uncon- 
i  trolled  desires  are  the  root  of  most  human  crimes,  but  at 
I  the  same  time  the  self-restraint  that  limits  desire,  or  self- 
I  seeking,  by  the  rights  of  others  seems  to  be  mainly,  though 
\  not  wholly,  the  prerogative  of  man. 

Considerations  of  this  kind  are  sufficient  to  remedy 
the  extreme  exaggeration  of  human  corruption  that  may 
often  be  heard,  but  they  are  not  inconsistent  with  the 
truth  that  human  nature  is  so  far  depraved  that  it  can 
never  be  safely  left  to  develop  unimpeded  without  strong 
legal  and  social  restraint.  It  is  not  necessary  to  seek 
examples  of  its  depravity  within  the  precincts  of  a  prison 
or  in  the  many  instances  that  may  be  found  outside  the 
criminal  population  of  morbid  moral  taints  which  are 
often  as  clearly  marked  as  physical  disease.  On  a  large 
scale  and  in  the  actions  of  great  bodies  of  men  the  melan- 
choly truth  is  abundantly  displayed.  On  the  whole 
Christianity  has  been  far  more  successful  in  influencing 
individuals    than   societies.      The  mere   spectacle   of    a 


CAUSES  WHICH  PROMOTE  OR  PREVENT  WAR   77 

battle-field  with  the  appalling  mass  of  hideous  suffering 
deliberately  and  ingeniously  inflicted  by  man  upon  man 
should  be  sufficient  to  scatter  all  idyllic  pictures  of  human 
nature.  It  was  once  the  custom  of  a  large  school  of 
writers  to  attribute  unjust  wars  solely  to  the  rulers  of  the 
world  who  for  their  own  selfish  ambitions  remorselessly 
sacrificed  the  lives  of  tens  of  thousands  of  their  subjects. 
Their  guilt  has  been  very  great,  but  they  would  never 
have  pursued  the  course  of  ambitious  conquest  if  the 
applause  of  nations  had  not  followed  and  encouraged 
them,  and  there  are  no  signs  that  democracy,  which  has 
enthroned  the  masses,  has  any  real  tendency  to  diminish 
war. 

In  modern  times  the  danger  of  war  lies  less  in  the 
intrigues  of  statesmen  than  in  deeply  seated  international 
jealousies  and  antipathies ;  in  sudden,  volcanic  outbursts 
of  popular  passion.  After  eighteen  hundred  years'  pro- 
fession of  the  creed  of  peace,  Christendom  is  an  armed 
camp.  Never,  or  hardly  ever,  in  times  of  peace  had  the 
mere  preparations  of  war  absorbed  so  large  a  proportion 
of  its  population  and  resources,  and  very  seldom  has  so 
large  an  amount  of  its  ability  been  mainly  employed  in 
inventing  and  in  perfecting  instruments  of  destruction. 
Those  who  will  look  on  the  world  without  illusion  will 
be  compelled  to  admit  that  the  chief  guarantees  for  its 
peace  are  to  be  found  much  less  in  moral  than  in  purely 
selfish  motives.  The  financial  embarrassments  of  the 
great  nations ;  their  profound  distrust  of  one  another ; 
the  vast  cost  of  modern  war;  the  gigantic  commercial 
disasters  it  inevitably  entails  ;  the  extreme  uncertainty  of 
its  issue ;  the  utter  ruin  that  may  follow  defeat— these 
are  the  real  influences  that  restrain  the  tiger  passions  and 
the  avaricious  cravings  of  mankind.     It  is  also  one  of  the 


78  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

advantages  that  accompany  the  many  evils  of  Universal 
Service,  that  great  citizen  armies  who  in  time  of  war  are 
drawn  from  their  homes,  their  families  and  their  peaceful 
occupations  have  not  the  same  thirst  for  battle  that  grows 
up  among  purely  professional  soldiers,  voluntarily  enlisted 
and  making  a  military  life  their  whole  career.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  all  this,  what  trust  could  be  placed  in  the  forbear- 
ance of  Christian  nations  if  the  path  of  aggression  was  at 
once  easy,  lucrative  and  safe  ?  The  judgments  of  nations 
in  dealing  with  the  aggressions  of  their  neighbours  are, 
it  is  true,  very  different  from  those  which  they  form  of 
aggressions  by  their  own  statesmen  or  for  their  own 
benefit.  But  no  great  nation  is  blameless,  and  there  is 
probably  no  nation  that  could  not  speedily  catch  the 
infection  of  the  warlike  spirit,  if  a  conqueror  and  a  few 
splendid  victories  obscured,  as  they  nearly  always  do,  the 
moral  issues  of  the  contest. 

War,  it  is  true,  is  not  always  or  wholly  evil.  Some- 
times it  is  justifiable  and  necessary.  Sometimes  it  is 
professedly  and  in  part  really  due  to  some  strong  wave  of 
philanthropic  feeling  produced  by  great  acts  of  wrong, 
though  of  all  forms  of  philanthropy  it  is  that  which  most 
naturally  defeats  itself.  Even  when  unjustifiable,  it  calls 
into  action  splendid  qualities  of  courage,  self-sacrifice,  and 
endurance  which  cast  a  dazzling  and  deceptive  glamour 
over  its  horrors  and  its  criminality.  It  appeals  too  beyond 
all  other  things  to  that  craving  for  excitement,  adventure, 
and  danger  which  is  an  essential  and  imperious  element 
in  human  nature,  and  which,  while  it  is  in  itself  neither 
a  virtue  nor  a  vice,  blends  powerfully  with  some  of  the 
best  as  well  as  with  some  of  the  worst  actions  of  man- 
kind. It  is  indeed  a  strange  thing  to  observe  how  many 
men  in  every  age  have  been  ready  to   risk   or   sacrifice 


THE   EXISTENCE   OF  PUKE   MALEVOLENCE  79 

their  lives  for  causes  which  they  have  never  clearly 
understood  and  which  they  would  find  it  difficult  in  plain 
words  to  describe. 

But  the  amount  of  pure  and  almost  spontaneous  male-' 
volence  in  the  world  is  probably  far  greater  than  we  at 
first  imagine.  In  public  life  the  workings  of  this  side  of 
human  nature  are  at  once  disclosed  and  magnified,  like 
the  figures  thrown  by  a  magic  lantern  on  a  screen,  to  a 
scale  which  it  is  impossible  to  overlook.  No  one  for 
example  can  study  the  anonymous  press  without  per- 
ceiving how  large  a  part  of  it  is  employed  systematically, 
persistently  and  deliberately  in  fostering  class,  or  race, 
or  international  hatreds,  and  often  in  circulating  false- 
hoods to  attain  this  end.  Many  newspapers  notoriously 
^depend  for  their  existence  on  such  appeals,  and  more  than 
any  other  instruments  they  inflame  and  perpetuate  those 
permanent  animosities  which  most  endanger  the  peace  of 
mankind.  The  fact  that  such  newspapers  are  becoming 
in  many  countries  the  main  and  almost  exclusive  reading 
of  the  poor,  forms  the  most  serious  deduction  from  the 
value  of  popular  education.  How  many  books  have 
attained  popularity,  how  many  seats  in  Parliament  have 
been  won,  how  many  posts  of  influence  and  profit  have 
been  attained,  how  many  party  victories  have  .been 
achieved  by  appealing  to  such  passions  !  Often  they 
disguise  themselves  under  the  lofty  names  of  patriotism 
and  nationality,  and  men  whose  whole  lives  have  been 
spent  in  sowing  class  hj,treds  and  dividing  kindred 
nations  may  be  found  masquerading  under  the  name  of 
patriots,  and  have  played  no  small  part  on  the  stage  of 
; politics.  The  deep-seated  sedition,  the  fierce  class  and 
national  hatreds  that  run  through  European  life  would 
have  a  very  different  intensity  from  what  they  now  un- 


80  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

fortunately  have  if  they  had  not  been  artificially  stimu- 
lated  and  fostered  through  purely  selfish  motives  by 
demagogues,  political  adventurers  and  public  writers. 

Some  of  the  very  worst  acts  of  which  man  can  be 
guilty  are  acts  which  are  commonly  untouched  by  Law 
and  only  faintly  censured  by  opinion.  Political  crimes 
which  a  false  and  sickly  sentiment  so  readily  condones 
are  conspicuous  among  them.  Men  who  have  been 
gambling  for  wealth  and  power  with  the  lives  and  fortunes 
of  multitudes ;  men  who  for  their  own  personal  ambition 
are  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  most  vital  interests  of  their 
country  ;  men  who  in  time  of  great  national  danger  and 
excitement,  deliberately  launch  falsehood  after  falsehood  in 
the  public  press  in  the  well-founded  conviction  that  they 
will  do  their  evil  work  before  they  can  be  contradicted, 
may  be  met  shameless,  and  almost  uncensured,  in 
Parliaments  and  drawing-rooms.  The  amount  of  false 
statement  in  the  world  which  cannot  be  attributed  to 
mere  carelessness,  inaccuracy,  or  exaggeration,  but  which 
is  plainly  both  deliberate  and  malevolent,  can  hardly  be 
overrated.  Sometimes  it  is  due  to  a  mere  desire  to  create 
a  lucrative  sensation,*  or  to  gratify  a  personal  dislike,  or 
even  to  an  unprovoked  malevolence  which  takes  pleasure 
in  inflicting  pain. 

Very  often  it  is  intended  for  purposes  of  stockjob- 
bing. The  financial  world  is  percolated  with  it.  It 
is  the  common  method  of  raising  or  depreciating  secu- 
rities, attracting  investors,  preying  upon  the  ignorant 
and  credulous,  and  enabling  dishonest  men  to  rise  rapidly 
to  fortune.  When  the  prospect  of  speedy  wealth  is  in 
sight,  there  are  always  numbers  who  are  perfectly 
prepared  to  pursue  courses  involving  the  utter  ruin  of 
multitudes,  endangering  the  most    serious    international 


COMMERCIAL  DISHONESTY  81 

interests,  perhaps  bringing  down  upon  the  world  all  the 
calamities  of  War.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  such  men  are 
only  a  minority,  though  it  is  less  certain  that  they  would 
be  a  minority  if  the  opportunity  of  obtaining  sudden 
riches  by  immoral  means  was  open  to  all,  and  it  is  no 
small  minority  who  are  accustomed  to  condone  these 
crimes  when  they  have  succeeded.  It  is  much  to  be 
questioned  whether  the  greatest  criminals  are  to  be  found 
within  the  walls  of  prisons.  Dishonesty  on  a  small  scale 
nearly  always  finds  its  punishment.  Dishonesty  on  a 
gigantic  scale  continually  escapes.  The  pickpocket  and  the 
burglar  seldom  fail  to  meet  with  their  merited  punish- 
ment, but  in  the  management  of  Companies,  in  the  great 
fields  of  industrial  enterprise  and  speculation,  gigantic 
fortunes  are  acquired  by  the  ruin  of  multitudes  and  by 
methods  which,  though  they  evade  legal  penalties,  are  essen- 
tially fraudulent.  In  the  majority  of  cases  these  crimes  are 
perpetrated  by  educated  men  who  are  in  possession  of  all 
the  necessaries,  of  most  of  the  comforts,  and  of  many  of  the 
luxuries  of  life,  and  some  of  the  worst  of  them  are  power- 
fully favoured  by  the  conditions  of  modern  civilisation. 
There  is  no  greater  scandal  or  moral  evil  in  our  time  than 
the  readiness  with  which  public  opinion  excuses  them, 
and  the  influence  and  social  position  it  accords  to  mere 
wealth,  even  when  it  has  been  acquired  by  notorious 
dishonesty  or  when  it  is  expended  with  absolute  selfish- 
ness or  in  ways  that  are  positively  demoralising.  In  many 
respects  the  moral  progress  of  Mankind  seems  to  me 
incontestable,  but  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  in 
this  respect  social  morality,  especially  in  England  and 
America,  has  not  seriously  retrograded. 

In  truth,  while  it  is  a  gross  libel  upon  human  nature 
to  deny  the  vast  amount  of  genuine  kindness,  self-sacrifice 

G 


82  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

and  even  heroism  that  exists  in  the  world,  it  is  equally 
idle  to  deny  the  deplorable  weakness  of  self-restraint,  the 
great  force  and  the  widespread  influence  of  purely  evil 
passions  in  the  affairs  of  men.  The  distrust  of  human 
character  which  the  experience  of  life  tends  to  produce  is 
one  great  cause  of  the  Conservatism  which  so  compionly 
strengthens  with  age.  It  is  more  and  more  felt  that  all 
the  restraints  of  law,  custom,  and  religion  are  essential  to 
hold  together  in  peaceful  co-operation  the  elements  of 
society,  and  men  learn  to  look  with  increasing  tolerance, 
both  on  institutions  and  opinions  which  cannot  stand  the 
test  of  pure  reason  and  may  be  largely  mixed  with  delu- 
sions if  only  they  deepen  the  better  habits  and  give  an 
additional  strength  to  moral  restraints.  They  learn  also 
to  appreciate  the  danger  of  pitching  their  ideals  too 
high,  and  endeavouring  to  enforce  lines  of  conduct  greatly 
above  the  average  level  of  human  goodness.  Such 
attempts  when  they  take  the  form  of  coercive  action 
seldom  fail  to  produce  a  recoil  which  is  very  detrimental 
to  morals.  In  this,  as  in  all  other  spheres,  the  importance 
of  compromise  in  practical  life  is  one  of  the  great  lessons 
which  experience  teaches. 


NEWMAN   ON  VENIAL   SIN  83 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

The  phrase  Moral  Compromise  has  an  evil  sound,  and  it  / 
opens  out  questions  of  practical  ethics  which  are  very) 
difficult  and  very  dangerous,  but  they  are  questions  with/ 
which,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  every  one  is  obliged  I 
to  deal.    The  contrasts  between  the  rigidity  of  theological 
formulae  and  actual  life  are  on  this  subject  very  great, 
though  in  practice,  and  by  the  many  ingenious  subtleties 
that  constitute  the  science  of  casuistry,  many  theologians 
have  attempted  to  evade  them.     A  striking  passage  from 
the  pen  of  Cardinal  Newman  will  bring  these  contrasts 
into  the  clearest  light.     '  The  Church  holds,'  he  writes, 
*  that  it  were   better   for  sun  and   moon  to  drop  from 
heaven,  for  the  earth  to  fail,  and  for  all  the  many  millions 
who  are  upon  it  to  die  of  starvation  in  extremest  agony,  so 
far  as  temporal  affliction  goes,  than  that  one  soul,  I  will 
not  say  should  be  lost,  but  should  commit  one  single  venial 
sin,  should  tell  one  wilful  untruth,  though  it  harmed  no 
one,  or  steal  one  poor  farthing  without  excuse.'  ^ 

It  is  certainly  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  such  a  doc- 
trine would  lead  to  consequences  absolutely  incompatible 
with  any  life  outside  a  hermitage  or  a  monastery.  It 
would  strike  at  the  root  of  all  civilisation,  and  although 
many  may  be  prepared  to  give  it  their  formal  assent, 
no  human  being  actually  believes  it  with  the  kind  of 
belief  that  becomes  a  guiding  influence  in  life.     I  have 

'  Newman's  Anglican  Difficulties,  p.  190. 

Q  2 


84  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

dwelt  on  this  subject  in  another  book,  and  may  here 
repeat  a  few  lines  which  I  then  wrote.  If  '  an  undoubted 
sin,  even  the  most  trivial,  is  a  thing  in  its  essence  and  its 
consequences  so  unspeakably  dreadful  that  rather  than  it 
should  be  committed  it  would  be  better  that  any  amount 
of  calamity  which  did  not  bring  with  it  sin  should  be 
endured,  even  that  the  whole  human  race  should  perish 
in  agonies,  it  is  manifest  that  the  supreme  object  of 
humanity  should  be  sinlessness,  and  it  is  equally  manifest 
that  the  means  to  this  end  is  the  absolute  suppression  of 
the  desires.  To  expand  the  circle  of  wants  is  necessarily 
to  multiply  temptations  and  therefore  to  increase  the 
number  of  sins.'  No  material  and  intellectual  advantages, 
no  increase  of  htiman  happiness,  no  mitigation  of  the 
suffering  or  dreariness  of  human  life  can,  according  to 
this  theory,  be  other  than  an  evil  if  it  adds  even  in  the 
smallest  degree  or  in  the  most  incidental  manner  to  the 
sins  that  are  committed.  '  A  sovereign  when  calculating 
the  consequences  of  a  war  should  reflect  that  a  single  sin 
occasioned  by  that  war,  a  single  blasphemy  of  a  wounded 
soldier,  the  robbery  of  a  single  hen-coop,  the  violation  of 
the  purity  of  a  single  woman  is  a  greater  calamity  than 
the  ruin  of  the  entire  commerce  of  his  nation,  the  loss  of 
her  most  precious  provinces,  the  destruction  of  all  her 
power.  He  must  believe  that  the  evil  of  the  increase  of 
unchastity  which  invariably  results  from  the  formation 
of  an  army  is  an  immeasurably  greater  calamity  than  any 
national  or  political  disasters  that  army  can  possibly 
avert.  He  must  believe  that  the  most  fearful  plagues 
and  famines  that  desolate  his  land  should  be  regarded  as  a 
matter  of  rejoicing  if  they  have  but  the  feeblest  and  most 
transient  influence  in  repressing  vice.  He  must  believe 
that  if  the  agglomeration  of  his  people  in  great  cities  adds 


INSUFFICIENCY  OF   THEOLOGICAL  FORMULA        86 

but  one  to  the  number  of  their  sins,  no  possible  intel- 
lectual or  material  advantages  can  prevent  the  construc- 
tion of  cities  being  a  fearful  calamity.     According  to  this 
principle  every  elaboration  of  life,  every  amusement  that 
brings  multitudes  together,  almost  every  art,  every  acces- 
sion of  wealth  that  awakens  or  stimulates  desires  is  an 
evil,  for  all  these  become  the  sources  of  some  sins,  and 
their  advantages  are  for  the  most  part  purely  terrestrial.' 
Considerations  of  this  kind  if  duly  realised  bring  out 
clearly  the  insincerity  and  the  unreality  of  much  of  our 
professed  belief.     Hardly  any  sane  man  would  desire  to 
suppress   Bank   Holidays  simply  because   they  are   the 
occasion  of  a  considerable  number  of  cases  of  drunkenness 
which  would  not  otherwise  have  taken  place.    No  humane 
legislator  would  hesitate  to  suppress  them  if  they  pro- 
duced an  equal  number  of  deaths  or  other  great  physical 
calamities.     This  manner  of  measuring  the  relative  im- 
portance of  things  is  not  incompatible  with  a  general 
acknowledgment  of  the  fact  that  there  are  many  amuse- 
ments which  produce  an  amount  of  moral  evil  that  over- 
balances their  advantages  as  sources  of  pleasure,  or  of  the 
great  truth  that  the  moral  is  the  higher  and  ought  to  be 
the  ruling  part  of  our  being.     But  the  realities  of  life 
cannot  be  measured  by  rigid  theological  formulae.     Life 
is  a  scene  in  which  different  kinds  of  interest  not  only 
blend  but  also  modify  and  in  some  degree  counterbalance 
one  another,  and  it  can  only  be  carried  on  by  constant 
compromises  in  which  the  lines  of  definition  are  seldom 
very  clearly  marked,  and  in  which  even  the  highest  inte- 
rest must  not  altogether  absorb  or  override  the  others. 
We  have  to  deal  with  good   principles  that  cannot   be 
pushed  to  their  full  logical  results ;  with  varying  standards 
which  cannot  be  brought  under  inflexible  law. 


86  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

Take  for  example  the  many  untruths  which  the  con- 
ventional courtesies  of  Society  prescribe.  Some  of  these 
are  so  purely  matter  of  phraseology  that  they  deceive  no 
one.  Others  chiefly  serve  the  purpose  of  courteous  con- 
cealment, as  when  they  enable  us  to  refuse  a  request,  or  to 
decline  an  invitation  or  a  visit  without  disclosing  whether 
disinclination  or  inability  is  the  cause.  Then  there  are 
falsehoods  for  useful  purposes.  Few  men  would  shrink 
from  a  falsehood  which  was  the  only  means  of  saving  a 
patient  from  a  shock  which  would  probably  produce  his 
death.  No  one,  I  suppose,  would  hesitate  to  deceive  a 
criminal  if  by  no  other  means  he  could  prevent  him  from 
accomplishing  a  crime.  There  are  also  cases  of  the  sup- 
pression of  what  we  believe  to  be  true,  and  of  tacit  or 
open  acquiescence  in  what  we  believe  to  be  false,  when 
a  full  and  truthful  disclosure  of  our  own  beliefs  might 
destroy  the  happiness  of  others,  or  subvert  beliefs  which 
are  plainly  necessary  for  their  moral  well-being.  Cases 
of  this  kind  will  continually  occur  in  life,  and  a  good  man 
who  deals  with  each  case  as  it  arises  will  probably  find 
no  great  difficulty  in  steering  his  course.  But  the  vague 
and  fluctuating  lines  of  moral  compromise  cannot  without 
grave  moral  danger  be  reduced  to  fixed  rules  to  be  carried 
out  to  their  full  logical  consequences.  The  immortal 
pages  of  Pascal  are  sufficient  to  show  to  what  extremes 
of  immorality  the  doctrine  that  the  end  justifies  the 
means  has  been  pushed  by  the  casuists  of  the  Church  of 
which  Cardinal  Newman  was  so  great  an  ornament. 

A  large  and  difficult  field  of  moral  compromise  is 
opened  out  in  the  case  of  war,  which  necessarily  involves 
a  complete  suspension  of  great  portions  of  the  moral  law. 
This  is  not  merely  the  case  in  unjust  wars  ;  it  applies 
also,  though  in  a  less  degree,  to  those  which  are  most 


THE   MORALS  OF  WAR 


87 


necessary  and  most  righteous.  War  is  not,  and  never 
can  be,  a  mere  passionless  discharge  of  a  painful  duty. 
It  is  in  its  essence,  and  it  is  a  main  condition  of  its 
success  to  kindle  into  fierce  exercise  among  great  masses 
of  men  the  destructive  and  combative  passions — passions 
as  fierce  and  as  malevolent  as  that  with  which  the  hound 
^hunts  the  fox  to  its  death,  or  the  tiger  springs  upon  its 
[prey.  Destruction  is  one  of  its  chief  ends.  Deception  is 
[one  of  its  chief  means,  and  one  of  the  great  arts  of  skilful 

generalship  is  to  deceive  in  order  to  destroy.  Whatever 
[other  elements  may  mingle  with  and  dignify  war,  this  at 

least  is  never  absent,  and  however  reluctantly  men  may 
iter  into  war ;    however  conscientiously  they  may  en- 

leavour  to  avoid  it,  they  must  know  that  when  the  scene 
•of  carnage  has  once  opened  these  things  must  be  not  only 

accepted  and  condoned,  but  stimulated,  encouraged  and 
applauded.  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  disposition 
t^more  remote  from  the  morals  of  ordinary  life,  not  to  speak 
of  Christian  ideals,  than  that  with  which  the  soldiers 
,most  animated  with  the  fire  and  passion  that  lead  to 
[victory,  rush  forward  to  bayonet  the  foe. 

War  indeed,  which  is  absolutely  indispensable  in  our 
^present  stage  of  civilisation,  has  its  own  morals  which  are 
ivery  different  from  those  of  peaceful  life.  Yet  there  are 
ifew  fields  in  which,  through  the  stress  of  moral  motives, 
[greater  changes  have  been  effected.  In  the  early  stages 
iof  human  history  it  was  simply  a  question  of  power. 
|There  was  no  distinction  between  piracy  and  regular  war, 
[and  incursions  into  a  neighbouring  State  without  provo- 
iCation  and  with  the  sole  purpose  of  plunder  brought  with 
[them  no  moral  blame.  To  carry  the  inhabitants  of  a 
[conquered  country  into  slavery  ;    to  slaughter  the  whole 

)opulation  of  a  besieged  town ;  to  destroy  over  vast  tracts 


88  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

every  town,  village,  and  house,  and  to  put  to  death  every 
prisoner,  were  among  the  ordinary  incidents  of  war. 
These  things  were  done  without  reproach  in  the  best 
periods  of  Greek  and  Boman  civilisation.  In  many  cases 
neither  age  nor  sex  was  spared  !  ^  In  Rome  the  con- 
quered general  was  strangled  or  starved  to  death  in  the 
Mamertine  prison.  Tens  of  thousands  of  captives  were 
condemned  to  perish  in  gladiatorial  shows.  Julius  Caesar, 
whose  clemency  has  been  so  greatly  extolled,  *  executed 
the  whole  senate  of  the  Veneti ;  permitted  a  massacre  of 
the  Usipetes  and  Tencteri ;  sold  as  slaves  40,000  natives  of 
Genabum ;  and  cut  off  the  right  hands  of  all  the  brave 
men  whose  only  crime  was  that  they  held  to  the  last 
against  him  their  town  of  Uxellodunum.'  ^  No  slaughter 
in  history  is  more  terrible  than  that  which  took  place  at 
Jerusalem  under  the  general  who  was  called  *  the  delight 
of  the  human  race,'  and  when  the  last  spasm  of  resistance 
had  ceased,  Titus  sent  Jewish  captives,  both  male  and 
female,  by  thousands  to  the  provincial  amphitheatres  to 
be  devoured  by  wild  beasts  or  slaughtered  as  gladiators. 

Yet  from  a  very  early  period  lines  were  drawn  form- 
ing a  clear  though  somewhat  arbitrary  code  of  military 
morals.  In  Greece  a  broad  distinction  was  made  between 
wars  with  Greek  States  and  with  Barbarians,  the  latter 
being  regarded  as  almost  outside  the  pale  of  moral  con- 
sideration. It  is  a  distinction  which  in  reality  was  not 
very  widely  different  from  that  which  Christian  nations 
have  in  practice  continually  made  between  wars  within 
the  borders  of  Christendom,  and  wars  with   savage   or 

'  See  Grotius,  de  Jure,  book  iii.  ch.  iv.  On  the  Jewish  notions  on  this 
subject,  see  Deut.  ii.  34  ;  vii.  2,  16 ;  xx.  10-16  ;  Psalm  cxxxvii.  9 ;  1  Sam. 
XV.  3.  I  have  collected  some  additional  facts  on  this  subject  in  my  History 
of  European  Morals. 

^  Tyrrell  and  Purser's  Correspondence  of  Cicero,  vol.  v.  p.  xlvii. 


DECLARA.TIONS  OF  WAR  89 

pagan  nations.  Greek,  and  perhaps  still  more  Roman, 
moralists  have  written  much  on  the  just  causes  of  war. 
Many  of  them  condemn  all  unjust,  aggressive,  or  even 
unnecessary  wars.  Some  of  them  insist  on  the  duty  of 
States  always  endeavouring  by  conferences,  or  even  by 
arbitration,  to  avert  war,  and  although  these  precepts, 
like  the  corresponding  precepts  of  Christian  divines,  were 
often  violated,  they  were  certainly  not  without  some  in- 
fluence on  affairs.  It  is  probably  not  too  much  to  say 
that  in  this  respect  Roman  wars  do  not  compare  un- 
favourably with  those  of  Christian  periods.  It  is  remark- 
able how  large  a  part  of  the  best  Christian  works  on  the 
ethics  of  war  is  based  on  the  precepts  of  pagan  moralists, 
and  although  in  antiquity  as  in  modern  times  the  real 
cause  of  war  was  often  very  different  from  the  pretexts, 
the  sense  of  justice  in  war  was  as  clearly  marked  in 
Roman  as  in  most  Christian  periods.^ 

Great  stress  was  laid  upon  the  duty  of  a  formal  de- 
claration of  war  preceding  hostilities.  Polybius  mentions 
the  reprobation  that  was  attached  in  Greece  to  the  ^to- 
lians  for  having  neglected  this  custom.  It  was  universal 
in  Roman  times,  and  during  the  mediaeval  period  the 
custom  of  sending  a  challenge  to  the  hostile  power  was 
carefully  observed.  In  modern  times  formal  declaration 
of  war  has  fallen  greatly  into  desuetude.  The  hostilities 
between  England  and  Spain  under  Elizabeth,  and  the 
invasion  of  Germany  by  Gustavus  Adolphus,  were  begun 
without  any  such  declaration,  and  there  have  been  nume- 
rous instances  in  later  times.^ 

'  See  Grotius,  de  Jure  Belli  et  Pads. 

'^  Much  information  on  this  subject  will  be  found  in  a  remarkable  pam- 
phlet (said  to  have  been  corrected  by  Pitt)  called  '  An  Enquiry  into  the 
Manner  in  which  the  different  wars  in  Europe  have  commenced  during  the 
last  two  centuries,  by  the  Author  of  the  History  and  foundation  of  the  Law 
of  Nations  in  Europe '  (1805). 


90  THE   MAP  OF  LII'E 

The  treatment  of  prisoners  has  been  profoundly  modi- 
fied. Quarter,  it  is  true,  has  been  very  often  refused  in 
modern  wars  to  rebels,  to  soldiers  in  mutiny,  to  revolted 
slaves,  to  savages  who  themselves  give  no  quarter.  It 
has  been  often — perhaps  generally — refused  to  irregular 
soldiers  like  the  French  Francs-tireurs  in  the  War  of  1870, 
who  without  uniforms  endeavoured  to  defend  their  homes 
against  invasion.  It  was  long  refused  to  soldiers  who 
having  rejected  terms  of  surrender  continued  to  defend 
an  indefensible  place,  but  this  severity  during  the  last 
three  centuries  has  been  generally  condemned.  But, 
on  the  whole,  the  treatment  of  the  conquered  soldier 
has  steadily  improved.  At  one  time  he  was  killed.  At 
another  he  was  preserved  as  a  slave.  Then  he  was  per- 
mitted to  free  himself  by  payment  of  a  ransom  ;  now  he 
is  simply  kept  in  custody  till  he  is  exchanged  or  released 
on  parole,  or  till  the  termination  of  the  war.  In  the 
latter  half  of  the  present  century  many  elaborate  and 
beneficent  regulations  for  the  preservation  of  hospitals 
and  the  good  treatment  of  the  wounded  have  been  sanc- 
tioned by  international  agreement.  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  civil  population  and  combatants  has  been 
increasingly  observed.  As  a  general  rule  non-combatants, 
if  they  do  not  obstruct  the  enemy,  are  subjected  to  no 
further  injury  than  that  of  paying  war  contributions  and 
in  other  ways  providing  for  the  subsistence  of  the  in- 
vaders. The  wanton  destruction  of  private  property  has 
been  more  and  more  avoided.  Such  an  act  as  the  devas- 
tation of  the  Palatinate  under  Louis  XIV.  would  now  in 
a  European  war  be  universally  condemned,  though  the 
wholesale  destruction  of  villages  in  our  own  Indian 
frontier  wars  and  the  methods  employed  on  both  sides 
in  the  civil  war  in  Cuba  appear  to  have  borne  much 


WHAT  WEAPONS   MAY   BE   USED   IN  WAR  91 

resemblance  to  it.  In  the  treatment  of  merchants  the 
rule  of  reciprocity  which  was  laid  down  in  Magna  Charta 
is  largely  observed,  and  the  Conference  of  Brussels  in 
1874  pronounced  it  to  be  contrary  to  the  laws  of  war  to 
bombard  an  unfortified  town.  The  great  Civil  War  in 
America  probably  contributed  not  a  little  to  raise  the 
standard  of  humanity  in  war;  for  while  few  long  wars 
have  been  fought  with  such  determination  or  at  the  cost 
of  so  many  lives,  very  few  have  been  conducted  with  such 
a  scrupulous  abstinence  from  acts  of  wanton  barbarity. 

Many  restrictive  rules  also  have  been  accepted  tend- 
ing in  a  small  degree  to  mitigate  the  actual  operations 
^^  of  war,  and  they  have  had  some  real  influence  in  this 
direction,  though  it  is  not  possible  to  justify  the  military 
code  on  any  clear  principle  either  of  ethics  or  logic, 
assassination  and  the  encouragement  of  assassination  ; 
khe  use  of  poison  or  poisoned  weapons ;  the  violation  of 
)arole ;  the  deceptive  use  of  a  flag  of  truce  or  of  the  red 
jross  ;  the  slaughter  of  the  wounded ;  the  infringement 
)f  terms  of  surrender  or  of  other  distinct  agreements  ar6 
^absolutely  forbidden,  and  in  1868  the  Eepresentatives  of 
[the  European  Powers  assembled  at  St.  Petersburg  agreed 
bo  abolish  the  use  in  war  of  explosive  bullets  below  the 
reight  of  14  ounces,  and  to  forbid  the  propagation  in  an 
[fenemy's  country  of  contagious  disease  as  an  instrument 
k)f  war.  It  laid  down  the  general  principle  that  the  object 
[of  war  is  confined  to  disabling  the  enemy,  and  that 
Iweapons  calculated  to  inflict  unnecessary  suffering,  beyond 
hvhat  is  required  for  attaining  that  object,  should  be  pro- 
|hibited.  At  the  same  time  explosive  shells,  concealed 
jmines,  torpedoes  and  ambuscades  lie  fully  within  the  per- 
[mitted  agencies  of  War.  Starvation  may  be  employed, 
[and  the  cutting  off  of  the  supply  of  water,  or  the  destruc- 


92  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

tion  of  that  supply  by  mixing  with  it  something  not 
absolutely  poisonous  which  renders  it  undrinkable.  It  is 
allowable  to  deceive  an  enemy  by  fabricated  despatches 
purporting  to  come  from  his  own  side;  by  tampering 
with  telegraph  messages  ;  by  spreading  false  intelligence 
in  newspapers  ;  by  sending  pretended  spies  and  deserters 
to  give  him  untrue  reports  of  the  numbers  or  movements 
of  the  troops;  by  employing  false  signals  to  lure  him 
into  an  ambuscade.  On  the  use  of  the  flag  and  uniform 
of  an  enemy  for  purposes  of  deception  there  has  been 
some  controversy,  but  it  is  supported  by  high  military 
authority.^  The  use  of  spies  is  fully  authorised,  but  the 
spy  if  discovered  is  excluded  from  the  rights  of  war  and 
liable  to  an  ignominious  death. 

Apart  from  the  questions  I  have  discussed  there  is 
another  class  of  questions  connected  with  war  which  pre- 
sent great  difficulty.  It  is  the  right  of  men  to  abdicate 
their  private  judgment  by  entering  into  the  military 
profession.  In  small  nations  this  question  is  not  of  much 
importance,  for  in  them  wars  are  of  very  rare  occurrence 
and  are  usually  for  self-defence.  In  a  great  empire  it  is 
wholly  different.  Hardly  any  one  will  be  so  confident  of 
the  virtue  of  his  rulers  as  to  believe  that  every  war  which 
his  country  wages  in  every  part  of  its  dominions,  with 
uncivilised  as  well  as  civilised  populations,  is  just  and 
necessary,  and  it  is  ceit&mly  prima  facie  not  in  accordance 
with  an  ideal  morality  that  men  should  bind  themselves 
absolutely  for  life  or  for  a  term  of  years  to  kill  without 

*  See  Tovey's  Martial  Law  and  the  Custom  of  War,  part  2,  pp.  13,  29. 
A  striking  instance  of  the  deceptive  use  of  a  flag  occurred  in  1781,  when 
the  English,  having  captured  St.  Eustatius  from  the  Dutch,  allowed  the 
Dutch  flag  still  to  float  over  its  harbour  in  order  that  Dutch,  French, 
Spanish  and  American  ships  which  were  ignorant  of  the  capture  might  be 
decoyed  into  the  harbour  and  seized  as  prizes.  Some  writers  on  Military 
Law  maintain  that  this  was  within  the  rights  of  war. 


ENLISTMENT  IN  FOKEIGN   ARMIES  93 

question  at  the  command  of  their  superiors  those  who 
have  personally  done  them  no  wrong.  Yet  this  unquestion- 
ing obedience  is  the  very  essence  of  military  discipline  and 
without  it  the  efficiency  of  armies  and  the  safety  of  nations 
would  be  hopelessly  destroyed.  It  is  necessary  to  the 
great  interests  of  society  and  therefore  it  is  maintained ; 
strengthened  by  the  obligation  of  an  oath  and  still  more  effi- 
caciously by  a  code  of  honour  which  is  one  of  the  strongest 
binding  influences  by  which  men  can  be  governed. 

It  is  not,  however,  altogether  absolute,  and  a  variety 
of  distinctions  and  compromises  have  been  made.  There 
is  a  difference  between  the  man  who  enlists  in  the  army 
of  his  own  country  and  a  man  who  enlists  in  foreign 
service  either  permanently  or  for  the  duration  of  a  single 
war.  If  a  man  unnecessarily  takes  an  active  part  in  a 
struggle  between  two  countries  other  than  his  own,  it  may 
at  least  be  demanded  that  he  should  be  actuated  not  by  a 
mere  spirit  of  adventure  or  personal  ambition,  but  by  a 
strong  and  reasoned  conviction  that  the  cause  which  he 
is  supporting  is  a  righteous  one.  The  conduct  of  a  man 
who  enlists  in  a  foreign  army  which  may  possibly  be  used 
against  his  own  country  and  who  at  least  binds  himself  to 
obey  absolutely  chiefs  who  have  no  natural  authority  over 
him  has  been  much  condemned,  but  even  here  special 
circumstances  must  be  taken  into  account.  Few  persons 
I  suppose  would  seriously  blame  the  Irish  Catholics  of 
the  eighteenth  century  who  filled  the  armies  of  France, 
Austria,  Spain  and  Naples  at  a  time  when  disqualifying 
laws  excluded  them  on  account  of  their  religion  from  the 
British  army,  and  from  almost  every  path  of  ambition  at 
home.  There  is  also  perhaps  some  distinction  between  the 
position  of  a  soldier  who  is  obliged  to  serve,  and  a  soldier 
in  a  country  where  enlisting  is  voluntary,  and  also  between 


94  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

the  position  of  an  officer  who  can  throw  up  his  commission 
without  infringing  the  law,  and  a  private  who  cannot 
abandon  his  flag  without  committing  a  grave  legal  offence. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  the  American  Eevolution 
some  English  officers  left  the  army  rather  than  serve  in  a 
cause  which  they  believed  to  be  unrighteous.  It  was  in 
their  full  power  to  do  so,  but  probably  none  of  them 
would  have  desired  that  private  soldiers  who  had  no  legal 
choice  in  the  matter  should  have  followed  their  example 
and  become  deserters  from  the  ranks. 

There  are  however  extreme  cases  in  which  the  viola- 
tion of  the  military  oath  and  disobedience  to  military 
discipline  are  justified.  More  than  once  in  French  history 
an  usurper  or  his  agent  has  ordered  soldiers  to  coerce  or 
fire  upon  the  representatives  of  the  nation.  In  such  cases 
it  has  been  said  *  the  conscience  of  the  soldier  is  the  liberty 
of  the  people,'  and  the  refusal  of  private  soldiers  to  obey 
a  plainly  illegal  order  will  be  generally  though  not  univer- 
sally applauded.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  there  is  much 
obscurity  and  inconsistency  of  judgment.  The  rule  that 
the  moral  responsibility  falls  exclusively  on  the  person 
who  gives  the  order  and  that  the  private  has  no  voice 
or  responsibility  will  even  here  be  maintained  by  some. 
Ought  a  private  soldier  to  have  refused  to  take  part  in 
such  an  execution  as  that  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  or  in  the 
Coup  d'iitat  of  Napoleon  III.  ?  Ought  he  to  refuse  to 
fire  on  a  mob  if  he  doubts  the  legality  of  the  order  of  his 
superior  officer?  In  such  cases  there  is  sometimes  a 
direct  conflict  between  the  civil  and  the  military  law,  and 
there  have  been  instances  in  which  a  soldier  might  be 
punishable  before  the  first  for  acts  which  were  absolutely 
enforced  by  the  second.^ 

>  See  Fitz James  Stephen's  History  of  the  Criminal  Law,  i.  205. 


MILITAEY   ORDERS   INCONSISTENT   WITH   A   FAITH   95 

Perhaps  the  strongest  case  of  justifiable  disobedience 
that  can  be  alleged  is  when  a  soldier  is  ordered  to 
do  something  which  involves  apostasy  from  his  faith, 
though  even  here  it  would  be  difficult  to  show,  in  the 
light  of  pure  reason,  that  this  is  a  graver  thing  than 
to  kill  innocent  men  in  an  unrighteous  cause.  In 
the  Early  Church  there  were  some  soldier  martyrs  who 
suffered  death  because  they  believed  it  inconsistent  with 
their  faith  to  bear  arms,  or  because  they  were  asked  to  do 
some  acts  which  savoured  of  idolatry.  The  story  of  the 
Thebsean  legion  which  was  said  to  have  been  martyred 
under  Diocletian  rests  on  no  trustworthy  authority,  but 
it  illustrates  the  feeling  of  the  Church  on  the  subject. 
Josephus  tells  how  Jewish  soldiers  refused  in  spite  of  all 
punishments  to  bring  earth  with  the  other  soldiers  for  the 
reparation  of  the  Temple  of  Belus  at  Babylon.  Conflicts 
between  military  duty  and  religious  duty  must  have  not 
unfrequently  arisen  during  the  religious  wars  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  in  our  own  century  and  in  our  own 
army  there  have  been  instances  of  soldiers  refusing  through 
religious  motives  to  escort  or  protect  idolatrous  processions 
in  India,  or  to  present  arms  in  Catholic  countries  when  the 
Host  was  passing.  Quaker  opinions  about  war  are  abso- 
lutely inconsistent  with  the  compulsory  service  which 
prevails  in  nearly  all  European  countries,  and  religious 
scruples  about  conscription  have  been  among  the  motives 
that  have  brought  the  Eussian  Kaskolniks  into  collision 
with  the  civil  power. 

One  of  the  most  serious  instances  of  the  collision  of 
duties  in  our  time  is  furnished  by  the  great  Sepoy  Mutiny 
of  1857.  Erom  the  days  of  Clive,  Sepoy  soldiers  have 
served  under  the  British  flag  with  an  admirable  fidelity, 
and  the  Mutiny  of  Vellore  in  1806,  which  was  the  one 


96  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

exception,  was  due,  like  that  of  1857,  to  a  belief  that  the 
British  Government  were  interfering  with  their  faith. 
Few  things  in  the  history  of  the  great  Mutiny  are  so 
touching  as  the  profound  belief  of  the  English  com- 
manders of  the  Sepoy  regiments  in  the  unalterable  loyalty 
of  their  soldiers.  Many  of  them  lost  their  lives  through 
this  belief,  refusing  even  to  the  last  moment  and  in  spite 
of  all  evidence  to  abandon  it.  They  were  deceived,  and 
in  the  fierce  outburst  of  indignation  that  followed,  the 
conduct  of  the  Sepoy  soldiers  was  branded  as  the  blackest 
and  the  most  unprovoked  treachery. 

Yet  assuredly  no  charge  was  less  true.  Agitators  for 
their  own  selfish  purposes  had  indeed  acted  upon  the 
troops,  but  recent  researches  have  fully  proved  that  the 
real  as  well  as  the  ostensible  cause  of  the  Mutiny  was  the 
greased  cartridges.  It  was  believed  that  the  cartridges 
which  had  been  recently  issued  to  the  Sepoy  regiments 
were  smeared  with  a  mixture  of  cow's  fat  and  pig's  fat, 
one  of  these  ingredients  being  utterly  impure  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Hindoo,  and  the  other  in  the  eyes  of  the  Mussulman. 
To  bite  these  cartridges  would  destroy  the  caste  of  the 
Hindoo  and  carry  with  it  the  loss  of  everything  that  was 
most  dear  and  most  sacred  to  him  both  in  this  world  and 
in  the  next.  In  the  eyes  both  of  the  Moslem  and  the 
Hindoo,  it  was  the  gravest  and  the  most  irreparable  of 
crimes,  destroying  all  hopes  in  a  future  world,  and  yet 
this  crime  in  their  belief  was  imposed  upon  them  as  a 
matter  of  military  duty  by  their  officers.  It  was  as  if  the 
Puritan  soldiers  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  been 
ordered  by  their  commanders  to  abjure  their  hopes  of 
salvation  and  to  repudiate  and  insult  the  Christian  faith. 

It  is  true  that  the  existence  of  these  obnoxious  ingre- 
dients in  the  new  cartridges  was  solemnly  denied,  but  the 


THE   INDIAN   MUTINY  97 

sincerity  of  the  Sepoy  belief  is  incontestable,  and  General 
Anson,  the  commander-in-chief,  having  examined  the 
cartridges,  was  compelled  to  admit  that  it  was  very 
plausible.^  *  I  am  not  so  much  surprised,'  he  wrote  to 
Lord  Canning, '  at  their  objections  to  the  cartridges,  having 
seen  them.  I  had  no  idea  they  contained,  or  rather  are 
smeared  with  such  a  quantity  of  grease,  which  looks 
exactly  like  fat.  After  ramming  down  the  ball,  the 
muzzle  of  the  musket  is  covered  with  it.' 

Unfortunately  this  is  not  a  complete  statement  of  the 
case.  It  is  a  shameful  and  terrible  truth  that,  as  far  as 
the  fact  was  concerned,  the  Sepoys  were  perfectly  right 
in  their  belief.  In  the  words  of  Lord  Koberts,  '  The 
recent  researches  of  Mr.  Forrest  in  the  records  of  the 
Government  of  India  prove  that  the  lubricating  mixture 
used  in  preparing  the  cartridges  was  actually  composed  of 
the  objectionable  ingredients,  cow's  fat  and  lard,  and  that 
incredible  disregard  of  the  soldiers'  religious  prejudices 
was  displayed  in  the  manufacture  of  these  cartridges.'  ^ 
This  was  certainly  not  due,  as  the  Sepoys  imagined,  to 
any  desire  on  the  part  of  the  British  authorities  to  destroy 
caste  or  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Sepoys  to  Christianity.  It  was  simply  a  glaring  instance 
of  the  indifference,  ignorance  and  incapacity  too  often 
shown  by  British  administrators  in  dealing  with  beliefs 
and  types  of  character  wholly  unlike  their  own.  They 
were  unable  to  realise  that  a  belief  which  seemed  to  them 
so  childish  could  have  any  depth,  and  they  accordingly 
produced  a  Mutiny  that  for  a  time  shook  the  English 
power  in  India  to  its  very  foundation. 

The  horrors  of  Cawnpore — which  were  due  to  a  single 
man — soon  took  away  from  the  British  public  all  power 
of  sanely  judging  the  conflict,  and  a  struggle  in  which 
'  Lord  Eoberts'  Forty-one  Years  in  India,  i.  94.  2  jfeid!  p.  431. 


98  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

no  quarter  was  given  was  naturally  marked  by  extreme 
savageness  ;  but  in  looking  back  upon  it,  English  writers 
must  acknowledge  with  humiliation  that  if  mutiny  is  ever 
justifiable,  no  stronger  justification  could  be  given  than 
that  of  the  Sepoy  troops. 

Many  of  my  readers  will  remember  an  exquisite  little 
poem  called '  The  Forced  Kecruit,'  in  which  Mrs.  Browning 
has  described  a  young  Venetian  soldier,  who  was  forced 
by  the  conscription  to  serve  against  his  fellow-country- 
men in  the  Austrian  army  at  Solferino,  and  who  advanced 
cheerfully  to  die  by  the  Italian  guns,  holding  a  musket 
that  had  never  been  loaded  in  his  hand.  Such  a  figure, 
such  a  violation  of  military  law  will  claim  the  sympathy 
of  all,  but  a  very  different  judgment  should  be  passed  upon 
those  who,  having  voluntarily  entered  an  army,  betray 
their  trust  and  their  oath  in  the  name  of  patriotism.  In 
the  Fenian  movement  in  Ireland,  one  of  the  chief  objects 
of  the  conspirators  was  to  corrupt  the  Irish  soldiers  and 
break  down  that  high  sense  of  military  honour  for  which 
in  all  times  and  in  many  armies  the  Irish  people  have 
been  conspicuous.  '  The  epidemic  '  [of  disaffection],  boasts 
a  writer  who  was  much  mixed  in  the  conspiracies  of  those 
times,  *  was  not  an  affair  of  individuals,  but  of  companies 
and  of  whole  regiments.  To  attempt  to  impeach  all  the 
military  Fenians  before  Courts  Martial  would  have  been 
to  throw  England  into  a  panic,  if  not  to  precipitate  an 
appalling  mutiny  and  invite  foreign  invasion.'  ^ 

I  do  not  quote  these  words  as  a  true  statement.  They 
are,  I  believe,  a  gross  exaggeration  and  a  gross  calumny 
on  the  Irish  soldiers,  nor  do  I  doubt  that  most,  if  not  all, 
the  soldiers  who  may  have  been  induced  over  a  glass  of 
whisky,  or  through  the  persuasions  of  some  cunning 
agitator,  to  take  the  Fenian  Oath  would,  if  an  actual  con- 

'  Contemporary  Beview,   May   1897.      Article    by    William    O'Brien 
Was  Fenianism  ever  Formidable  ?  ' 


FENIANISM   IN   THE   ARMY  99 

flict  had  arisen,  have  proved  perfectly  faithful  soldiers  of 
the  Queen.  The  perversion  of  morals,  however,  which 
looks  on  such  violations  of  military  duty  as  praiseworthy, 
has  not  been  confined  to  writers  of  the  stamp  of  Mr. 
O'Brien.  A  striking  instance  of  it  is  furnished  by  a  recent 
American  biography.  Among  the  early  Fenian  con- 
spirators was  a  young  man  named  John  Boyle  O'Keilly. 
He  was  a  genuine  enthusiast,  with  a  real  vein  of  literary 
talent ;  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life  he  won  the  affec- 
tion and  admiration  of  very  honourable  men,  and  I  should 
certainly  have  no  wish  to  look  too  harshly  on  youthful 
errors  which  were  the  result  of  a  misguided  enthusiasm 
if  they  had  been  acknowledged  as  such.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  however,  he  began  his  career  by  an  act  which, 
according  to  every  sound  principle  of  morality,  religion, 
and  secular  honour,  was  in  the  highest  degree  culpable. 
Being  a  sworn  Fenian,  he  entered  a  regiment  of  hussars, 
assumed  the  uniform  of  the  Queen,  and  took  the  oath  of 
allegiance  for  the  express  purpose  of  betraying  his  trust, 
and  seducing  the  soldiers  of  his  regiment.  He  was 
detected  and  condemned  to  penal  servitude,  and  he  at  last 
escaped  to  America,  where  he  took  an  active  part  in  the 
Fenian  movement.  After  his  death  his  biography  was 
written  in  a  strain  of  unqualified  eulogy,  but  the  biographer 
has  honestly  and  fully  disclosed  the  facts  which  I  have 
related.  This  book  has  an  introduction  written  by 
Cardinal  Gibbons,  one  of  the  most  prominent  Catholic 
divines  in  the  United  States.  The  reader  may  be  curious 
to  see  how  the  act  of  aggravated  treachery  and  perjury 
which  it  revealed  was  judged  by  a  personage  who  occupies 
all  but  the  highest  position  in  a  Church  which  professes 
to  be  the  supreme  and  inspired  teacher  of  morals.  Not 
a  word  in   this  Introduction  implies  that  O'Keilly  had 

H   2 


100  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

done  any  act  for  which  he  should  be  ashamed.  He  is 
described  as  *  a  great  and  good  man,'  and  the  only  allusion 
to  his  crime  is  in  the  following  terms.  'In  youth  his 
heart  agonises  over  that  saddest  and  strangest  romance  in 
all  history — the  wrongs  and  woes  of  his  motherland — that 
Niobe  of  the  Nations.  In  manhood,  because  he  dared  to 
wish  her  free,  he  finds  himself  a  doomed  felon,  an  exiled 
convict,  in  what  he  calls  himself  the  Nether  World.  .  .  . 
The  Divine  faith  implanted  in  his  soul  in  childhood 
flourished  there  undyingly,  pervaded  his  whole  being  with 
its  blessed  influences,  furnished  his  noblest  ideals  of 
thought  and  conduct.  .  .  .  The  country  of  his  adoption 
vies  with  the  land  of  his  birth  in  testifying  to  the  up- 
rightness of  his  life.  .  .  .  With  all  these  voices  I  blend 
my  own,  and  in  their  name  I  say  that  the  world  is 
brighter  for  having  possessed  him.'  ^ 

'  Eoche's  Life  of  John  Boyle  O'Reilly,  with  introduction  by  Cardinal 
Gibbons.  Since  the  publication  of  this  book  Cardinal  Gibbons  has  written 
a  letter  to  the  Tablet  (Dec.  2,  1899),  in  which  he  says  :  '  I  feel  it  due  to  my- 
self and  the  interests  of  truth  to  declare  that  till  I  read  Mr.  Lecky's  criticism 
I  did  not  know  that  Mr.  O'Keilly  had  ever  been  a  Fenian  or  a  British 
soldier,  or  that  he  had  tried  to  seduce  other  soldiers  from  their  allegiance. 
In  fact,  up  to  this  moment,  I  have  never  read  a  line  of  the  biography  for 
which  I  wrote  the  introduction.  .  .  .  My  only  acquaintance  with  Mr.  O'Eeilly's 
history  before  he  came  to  America  was  the  vague  information  I  had  that, 
for  some  political  offence,  the  exact  nature  of  which  I  did  not  learn,  he  had 
been  exiled  from  his  native  land  to  a  penal  colony,  from  which  he  after- 
wards escaped.' 

I  gladly  accept  this  assurance  of  Cardinal  Gibbons,  though  I  am  sur- 
prised that  he  should  not  have  even  glanced  at  a  book  to  which  he  gave  the 
sanction  of  his  name,  and  that  he  should  have  been  absolutely  ignorant  of 
the  most  conspicuous  event  of  a  life  which,  from  early  youth,  he  held  up  to 
unqualified  admiration.  I  regret,  too,  that  he  has  not  taken  the  opportunity 
of  this  letter  to  reprobate  a  form  of  moral  perversion  which  is  widely  spread 
among  his  Irish  co-religionists,  and  which  his  own  words  are  only  too  likely 
to  strengthen.  It  is  but  a  short  time  since  an  Irish  Nationalist  Member  of 
Parliament,  being  accused  of  having  once  served  the  Queen  as  a  Volunteer, 
justified  himself  by  saying  that  he  had  only  worn  the  coat  which  was  worn 
by  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  and  Boyle  O'Reilly ;  while  another  Irish 
Member,  at  a  public  meeting  in  Dublin,  and  amid  the  cheers  of  his  audience, 
expressed  his  hope  that  in  the  South  African  war  the  Irish  soldiers  under 
the  British  flag  would  fire  on  the  English  instead  of  on  the  Boers.—  {4th  ed.) 


MORAL  COMPEO:y:iSE   IN   THE  LAW  101 


CHAPTEE  IX 

The  foregoing  chapter  will  have  shown  sufficiently  how 
largely  in  one  great  and  necessary  profession  the  element 
of  moral  compromise  must  enter,  and  will  show  the  nature 
of  some  of  the  moral  difficulties  that  attend  it.  We  find 
illustrations  of  much  the  same  kind  in  the  profession  of  an 
advocate.  In  the  interests  of  the  proper  administration  of 
justice  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  every  cause, 
however  defective,  and  every  criminal,  however  bad, 
should  be  fully  defended,  and  it  is  therefore  indispensable 
that  there  should  be  a  class  of  men  entrusted  with  this 
duty.  It  is  the  business  of  the  judge  and  of  the  jury  to 
decide  on  the  merits  of  the  case,  but  in  order  that  they 
should  discharge  this  function  it  is  necessary  that  the 
arguments  on  both  sides  should  be  laid  before  them  in  the 
strongest  form.  The  clear  interest  of  society  requires  this, 
and  a  standard  of  professional  honour  and  etiquette  is 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  regulating  the  action  of  the  ad- 
vocate. Misstatements  of  facts  or  of  law  ;  misquotations 
of  documents ;  strong  expressions  of  personal  opinion,  and 
some  other  devices  by  which  verdicts  may  be  won  are 
condemned  ;  there  are  cases  which  an  honourable  lawyer 
will  not  adopt,  and  there  are  rare  cases  in  which  in  the 
course  of  a  trial  he  Vv'ill  find  it  his  duty  to  throw  up  his 
brief. 

But  necessary  and  honourable  as  the  profession  may 


102  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

be,  there  are  sides  of  it  which  are  far  from  being  in 
accordance  with  an  austere  code  of  ideal  morals.  It  is 
idle  to  suppose  that  a  master  of  the  art  of  advocacy  will 
merely  confine  himself  to  a  calm  dispassionate  statement 
of  the  facts  and  arguments  of  his  side.  He  will  inevitably 
use  all  his  powers  of  rhetoric  and  persuasion  to  make  the 
cause  for  which  he  holds  a  brief  appear  true,  though  he 
knows  it  to  be  false ;  he  will  affect  a  warmth  which  he 
does  not  feel  and  a  conviction  which  he  does  not  hold  ;  he 
will  skilfully  avail  himself  of  any  mistake  or  omission 
of  his  opponent ;  of  any  technical  rule  that  can  exclude 
damaging  evidence  ;  of  all  the  resources  that  legal  subtlety 
and  severe  cross-examination  can  furnish  to  confuse 
dangerous  issues,  to  obscure  or  minimise  inconvenient 
facts,  to  discredit  hostile  witnesses.  He  will  appeal  to 
every  prejudice  that  can  help  his  cause ;  he  will  for  the 
time  so  completely  identify  himself  with  it  that  he  will 
make  its  success  his  supreme  and  all-absorbing  object, 
and  he  will  hardly  fail  to  feel  some  thrill  of  triumph  if  by 
the  force  of  ingenious  and  eloquent  pleading  he  has  saved 
the  guilty  from  his  punishment  or  snatched  a  verdict  in 
defiance  of  evidence. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  profession  which  inevitably 
leads  to  such  things  should  have  excited  scruples  among 
many  good  men.  Swift  very  roughly  described  lawyers 
as  '  a  society  of  men  bred  from  their  youth  in  the  art  of 
proving  by  words,  multiplied  for  the  purpose,  that  white 
is  black  and  black  is  white  according  as  they  are  paid.' 
Dr.  Arnold  has  more  than  once  expressed  his  dislike, 
and  indeed  abhorrence,  of  the  profession  of  an  advocate. 
It  inevitably,  he  maintained,  leads  to  moral  perversion, 
involving,  as  it  does,  the  indiscriminate  defence  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  in  many  cases  the  knowing  suppression 


MORAL   POSITION   OF  AN   ADVOCATE  103 

of  truth.  Macaulay,  who  can  hardly  be  regarded  as 
addicted  to  the  refinements  of  an  over-fastidious  morality ; 
reviewing  the  professional  rules  that  are  recognised  in 
England,  asks  'whether  it  be  right  that  not  merely 
believing  but  knowing  a  statement  to  be  true,  he  should 
do  all  that  can  be  done  by  sophistry,  by  rhetoric,  by 
solemn  asseveration,  by  indignant  exclamation,  by  gesture 
by  play  of  features,  by  terrifying  one  honest  witness,  by 
perplexing  another,  to  cause  a  Jury  to  think  that  state- 
ment false.'  Bentham  denounced  in  even  stronger 
language  the  habitual  method  of  'the  hireling  lawyer' 
in  cross-examining  an  honest  but  adverse  witness,  and 
he  declared  that  there  is  a  code  of  morality  current  in 
Westminster  Hall  generically  different  from  the  code 
of  ordinary  life,  and  directly  calculated  to  destroy 
the  love  of  veracity  and  justice.  On  the  other  hand, 
Paley  recognised  among  falsehoods  that  are  not  lies 
because  they  deceive  no  one,  the  statement  of  '  an  advocate 
asserting  the  justice  or  his  belief  of  the  justice  of  his 
client's  cause.'  Dr.  Johnson,  in  reply  to  some  objections 
of  Boswell,  argues  at  length,  but,  I  think,  with  some 
sophistry,  in  favour  of  the  profession.  '  You  are  not,'  he 
says,  '  to  deceive  your  client  with  false  representations  of 
your  opinion.  You  are  not  to  tell  lies  to  the  Judge,  but 
you  need  have  no  scruple  about  taking  up  a  case  which 
you  believe  to  be  bad  or  affecting  a  warmth  which  you  do 
not  feel.  You  do  not  know  your  cause  to  be  bad  till  the 
Judge  determines  it.  .  .  .  An  argument  which  does  not 
convince  yourself  may  convince  the  Judge,  and  if  it 
does  convince  him  you  are  wrong  and  he  is  right.  .  .  . 
Everybody  knows  you  are  paid  for  affecting  warmth  for 
your  client,  and  it  is  therefore  properly  no  dissimulation.' 
Basil   Montagu,  in  an  excellent  treatise  on  the  subject, 

UNIVERSITY  ) 


104  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

urges  that  an  advocate  is  simply  an  officer  assisting  in  the 
administration  of  justice  under  the  impression  that  truth 
is  best  elicited  and  that  difficulties  are  most  effectually  dis- 
entangled by  the  opposite  statements  of  able  men.  He  is 
an  indispensable  part  of  a  machine  which  in  its  net  result 
is  acting  in  the  real  interests  of  truth,  although  he  '  may 
profess  feelings  which  he  does  not  feel  and  may  support 
a  cause  which  he  knows  to  be  wrong,'  and  although  his 
advocacy  is  *  a  species  of  acting  without  an  avowal  that 
it  is  acting.' 

It  is,  of  course,  possible  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the 
Quaker  and  to  condemn  as  unchristian  all  participation 
in  the  law  courts,  and  although  the  Catholic  Church  has 
never  adopted  this  extreme,  it  seems  to  have  instinctively 
recognised  some  incompatibility  between  the  profession 
of  an  advocate  and  the  saintly  character.  Eenan  notices 
the  significant  fact  that  St.  Yves,  a  Saint  of  Brittany, 
appears  to  be  the  only  advocate  who  has  found  a  place  in 
its  hagiology,  and  the  worshippers  were  accustomed  to 
sing  on  his  festival  '  Advocatus  et  non  latro — Kes  miranda 
populo.'  It  is  indeed  evident  that  a  good  deal  of  moral 
compromise  must  enter  into  this  field,  and  the  standards 
of  right  and  wrong  that  have  been  adopted  have  varied 
greatly.  How  far,  for  example,  may  a  lawyer  support  a 
cause  which  he  believes  to  be  wrong  ?  In  some  ancient 
legislations  advocates  were  compelled  to  swear  that  they 
would  not  defend  causes  which  they  thought  or  discovered 
to  be  unjust.^  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  has  laid  down  in 
emphatic  terms  that  any  lawyer  who  undertakes  the 
defence  of  an  unjust  cause  is  committing  a  grievous  sin. 
It  is  imlawful,  he  contends,  to  co-operate  with  any  one 
who  is  doing  wrong,  and  an  advocate  clearly  counsels  and 

»  O'Brien,  The  Lawyer,  pp.  169,  170. 


CATHOLIC   DOCTRINE   ABOUT   ADVOCACY  105 

assists  him  whose  cause  he  undertakes.  Modern  Catholic 
casuists  have  dealt  with  the  subject  in  the  same  spirit. 
They  admit,  indeed,  that  an  advocate  may  undertake  the 
defence  of  a  criminal  whom  he  knows  to  be  guilty,  in 
order  to  bring  to  light  all  extenuating  circumstances,  but 
they  contend  that  no  advocate  should  undertake  a  civil 
cause  unless  by  a  previous  and  careful  examination  he  has 
convinced  himself  that  it  is  a  just  one  ;  that  no  advocate 
can  without  sin  undertake  a  cause  which  he  knows  or 
strongly  believes  to  be  unjust ;  that  if  he  has  done  so  he 
is  himself  bound  in  conscience  to  make  restitution  to  the 
party  that  has  been  injured  by  his  advocacy ;  that  if  in  the 
course  of  a  trial  he  discovers  that  a  cause  which  he  had 
believed  to  be  just  is  unjust  he  must  try  to  persuade  his 
client  to  desist,  and  if  he  fails  in  this  must  himself  abandon 
the  cause  though  without  informing  the  opposite  party 
of  the  conclusion  at  which  he  had  arrived  ;  that  in  con- 
ducting his  case  he  must  abstain  from  wounding  the  repu- 
tation of  his  neighbour  or  endeavouring  to  influence 
the  judges  by  bringing  before  them  misdeeds  of  his  oppo- 
nent which  are  not  connected  with  and  are  not  essential 
to  the  case.^  As  lately  as  1886  an  order  was  issued 
from  Eome  with  the  express  approbation  of  the  Pope  for- 
bidding any  Catholic,  mayor  or  judge,  to  take  part  in 
a  divorce  case,  as  divorce  is  absolutely  condemned  by  the 
Church.2 

There  have  been,  and  perhaps  still  are,  instances  of 
lawyers  endeavouring  to  limit  their  practice  to  cases  which 
they  believed  to  be  just.  Sir  Matthew  Hale  is  a  con- 
spicuous example,  but  he  acknowledged  that  he  consider- 


'  Dictionnaire  de  Cas  de  Conscience,  Art. '  Avocat ; '  Migne,  EncyclopMie 
TMologiqite,  i.  serie,  tome  xviii. 

*  Revue  de  Droit  International,  xxi.  615. 


106  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

ably  relaxed  his  rule  on  the  subject,  having  found  in  two 
instances  that  cases  which  at  the  first  blush  seemed  very- 
worthless  were  in  truth  well  founded.  As  a  general  rule 
English  lawyers  make  no  discrimination  on  this  ground 
in  accepting  briefs  unless  the  injustice  is  Yery  flagrant,  nor 
will  they,  except  in  very  extreme  cases,  do  their  client  the 
great  injury  of  throwing  up  a  brief  which  they  have  once 
accepted.  They  contend  that  by  acting  in  this  way  the 
administration  of  justice  in  the  long  run  is  best  served, 
and  in  this  fact  they  find  its  justification. 

In  the  conduct  of  a  case  there  are  rules  analogous 
to  those  which  distinguish  between  honourable  and  dis- 
honourable war,  but  they  are  less  clearly  defined  and  less 
universally  accepted.  In  criminal  prosecutions  a  remark- 
able, though  very  explicable,  distinction  is  drawn  between 
the  prosecutor  and  the  defender.  It  is  the  etiquette  of 
the  profession  that  the  former  is  bound  to  aim  only  at 
truth,  neither  straining  any  point  against  the  prisoner 
nor  keeping  back  any  fact  which  is  favourable  to  him, 
nor  using  any  argument  which  he  does  not  himself  believe 
to  be  just.  The  defender,  however,  is  not  bound  according 
to  professional  etiquette  by  such  rules.  He  may  use  argu- 
ments which  he  knows  to  be  bad,  conceal  or  shut  out  by 
technical  objections  facts  that  will  tell  against  his  clients, 
and,  subject  to  some  wide  and  vague  restrictions,  he  must 
make  the  acquittal  of  his  client  his  first  object.^ 

Sometimes  cases  of  extreme  difficulty  arise.  Probably 
the  best  known  is  the  case  of  Courvoisier,  the  Swiss  valet, 
who  murdered  Lord  William  Russell  in  1840.  In  the 
course  of   the   trial   Courvoisier  informed  his  advocate, 

'  See  Sir  James  Stephen's  General  View  of  the  Criminal  Law  of  Eng- 
land, pp.  167,  168. 


CASE   OF   COURVOISIER  107 

Phillips,  that  he  was  guilty  of  the  murder,  but  at  the 
same  time  directed  Phillips  to  continue  to  defend  him  to 
the  last  extremity.  As  there  was  overwhelming  evidence 
that  the  murder  must  have  been  committed  by  some  one 
who  slept  in  the  house,  the  only  possible  defence  was 
that  an  equal  amount  of  suspicion  attached  to  the  house- 
maid and  cook  who  were  its  other  occupants.  On  the 
first  day  of  the  trial,  before  he  knew  the  guilt  of  his  client 
from  his  own  lips,  Phillips  had  cross-examined  the  house- 
maid who  first  discovered  the  murder,  with  great  severity 
and  with  the  evident  object  of  throwing  suspicion  upon 
her.  What  course  ought  he  now  to  pursue?  It  hap- 
pened that  an  eminent  Judge  was  sitting  on  the  bench 
with  the  Judge  who  was  to  try  the  case,  and  Phillips 
took  this  Judge  into  his  confidence,  stated  privately 
to  him  the  facts  that  had  arisen  and  asked  for  his 
advice.  The  Judge  declared  that  Phillips  was  bound 
to  continue  to  defend  the  prisoner,  whose  case  would  have 
been  hopeless  if  his  own  counsel  abandoned  him,  and 
in  defending  him  he  was  bound  to  use  all  fair  arguments 
arising  out  of  the  evidence.  The  speech  of  Phillips 
was  a  masterpiece  of  eloquence  under  circumstances 
of  extraordinary  difficulty.  Much  of  it  was  devoted  to 
impugning  the  veracity  of  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecu- 
tion. He  solemnly  declared  that  it  was  not  his  business 
to  say  who  committed  the  murder,  and  that  he  had  no 
desire  to  throw  any  imputation  on  the  other  servants  in 
the  house,  and  he  abstained  scrupulously  from  giving  any 
personal  opinion  on  the  matter ;  but  the  drift  of  his  argu- 
ment was  that  Courvoisier  was  the  victim  of  a  conspiracy, 
the  police  having  concealed  compromising  articles  among 
his  clothes,  and  that  there  was  no  clear   circumstance 


108  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

distinguishing  the  suspicion  against  him  from  that  against 
the  other  servants.^ 

The  conduct  of  PhilHps  in  this  case  has,  I  beHeve,  been 
justified  by  the  preponderance  of  professional  opinion, 
though  when  the  facts  were  known  pubHc  opinion  out- 
side the  profession  generally  condemned  it.  Some  lawyers 
have  pushed  the  duty  of  defence  to  a  point  which  has 
aroused  much  protest  even  in  their  own  profession.  '  The 
Advocate,'  said  Lord  Brougham  in  his  great  speech  before 
the  House  of  Lords  in  defence  of  Queen  Caroline,  '  by 
the  sacred  duty  which  he  owes  his  client,  knows  in  the 
discharge  of  that  office  but  one  person  in  the  world — that 
client  and  none  other.  To  save  that  client  by  all  expedi- 
ent means,  to  protect  that  client  at  all  hazards  and  costs 
to  all  others  and  among  others  to  himself,  is  the  highest 
and  most  unquestioned  of  his  duties ;  and  he  must  not 
regard  the  alarm,  the  suffering,  the  torment,  the  destruc- 
tion which  he  may  bring  upon  any  other.  Nay,  separating 
even  the  duties  of  a  patriot  from  those  of  an  advocate, 
and  casting  them,  if  need  be,  to  the  wind,  he  must  go  on, 
reckless  of  consequences,  if  his  fate  it  should  unhappily 
be  to  involve  his  country  in  confusion  for  his  client's  pro- 
tection.' 

This  doctrine  has  been  emphatically  repudiated  by 
some  eminent  English  lawyers,  but  both  in  practice  and 
theory  the  profession  have  differed  widely  in  different 
courts,  times  and  countries.     How  far,  for  example,  is  it 

'  Phillips'  defence  of  his  own  conduct  will  be  found  in  a  pamphlet 
called  '  Correspondence  of  S.  Warren  and  C.  Phillips  relating  to  the 
Courvoisier  trial.'  It  has  often  been  said  that  Phillips  had  asserted  in  his 
speech  his  full  belief  in  the  innocence  of  his  client,  but  this  is  disproved 
by  the  statement  of  C.  J.  Tindal,  who  tried  the  case,  and  of  Baron  Parke, 
who  sat  on  the  Bench.  C.  J.  Denman  also  pronounced  Phillips'  speech  to 
be  unexceptionable.  An  able  and  interesting  article  on  this  case  by 
Mr.  Atlay  will  be  found  in  the  Comhill  Magazine,  May  1897. 


TECHNICALITIES  DEFEATING  JUSTICE  109 

permissible  in  cross-examination  to  browbeat  or  confuse 
an  honest  but  timid  and  unskilful  witness ;  to  attempt  to 
discredit  the  evidence  of  a  witness  on  a  plain  matter  of 
fact  about  which  he  had  no  interest  in  concealment  by- 
exhuming  against  him  some  moral  scandal  of  early  youth 
which  was  totally  unconnected  with  the  subject  of  the 
trial,  or  by  pursuing  such  a  line  of  cross-examination  to 
keep  out  of  the  witness-box  material  witnesses  who  are 
conscious  that. their  past  lives  are  not  beyond  reproach  ? 
How  far  is  it  right  or  permissible  to  press  legal  techni- 
calities as  opposed  to  substantial  justice?  Probably  most 
lawyers,  if  they  are  perfectly  candid,  will  agree  that  these 
things  are  in  some  measure  inevitable  in  their  profession, 
and  that  the  real  question  is  one  of  degree,  and  therefore 
not  susceptible  of  positive  definition.  There  is  a  kind  of 
mind  that  grows  so  enamoured  with  the  subtleties  and 
technicalities  of  the  law  that  it  delights  in  the  unexpected 
and  unintended  results  to  which  they  may  lead.  I  have 
heard  an  English  Judge  say  of  another  long  deceased  that 
he  had  through  this  feeling  a  positive  pleasure  in  in- 
justice, and  one  lawyer,  not  of  this  country,  once  con- 
fessed to  me  the  amusement  he  derived  from  breaking 
the  convictions  of  criminals  in  his  state  by  discovering 
technical  flaws  in  their  indictments.  There  is  a  class  of 
mind  that  delights  in  such  cases  as  that  of  the  legal 
document  which  was  invalidated  because  the  letters  a.d. 
were  put  before  the  date  instead  of  the  formula  *  in  the 
year  of  Our  Lord,'  or  that  of  a  swindler  who  was  suffered 
to  escape  with  his  booty  because  in  the  writ  that  was 
issued  for  his  arrest,  by  a  copyist's  error  the  word  'sheriff' 
was  written  instead  of  '  sheriffs,'  or  that  of  a  lady  who 
was  deprived  of  an  estate  of  £14,000  a  year  because  by  a 
mere  mistake  of  the  conveyancer  one  material  word  was 


f 

110  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE  ^ 

omitted  from  the  will,  although  the  clearest  possible 
evidence  was  offered  showing  the  wishes  of  the  testator.^ 
Such  lawyers  argue  that  in  will  cases  '  the  true  question 
is  not  what  the  testator  intended  to  do,  but  what  is  the 
meaning  of  the  words  of  the  will,'  and  that  the  balance 
of  advantages  is  in  favour  of  a  strict  adherence  to  the 
construction  of  the  sentence  and  the  technicalities  of 
the  law,  even  though  in  particular  cases  it  may  lead  to 
grave  injustice. 

It  must  indeed  be  acknowledged  that  up  to  a  period 
extending  far  into  the  nineteenth  century  those  lawyers 
who  adopted  the  most  technical  view  of  their  profession 
were  acting  fully  in  accordance  with  its  spirit.  Few,  if 
any,  departments  of  English  legislation  and  administra- 
tion were  till  near  the  middle  of  this  century  so  scandal- 
ously bad  as  those  connected  with  the  administration  of 
the  civil  and  the  criminal  law,  and  especially  with  the 
Court  of  Chancery.  The  whole  field  was  covered  with  a 
network  of  obscure,  intricate,  archaic  technicalities ;  useless 
except  for  the  purpose  of  piling  up  costs,  procrastinating 
decisions,  placing  the  simplest  legal  processes  wholly 
beyond  the  competence  of  any  but  trained  experts,  giving 
endless  facilities  for  fraud  and  for  the  evasion  or  defeat  of 
justice,  turning  a  law  case  into  a  game  in  which  chance 
and  skill  had  often  vastly  greater  influence  than  substan- 
tial merits.  Lord  Brougham  probably  in  no  degree  ex- 
aggerated when  he  described  great  portions  of  the  English 
law  as  *  a  two-edged  sword  in  the  hands  of  craft  and  of 
oppression,'  and  a  great  authority  on  Chancery  law  de- 
clared in  1839  that  '  no  man,  as  things  now  stand,  can 
enter  into  a  Chancery  suit  with  any  reasonable  hope  of 

^  See  these  cases  in  Warren's  Social  and  Professional  Duties  of  an 
Attorney,  pp.  128-133, 195, 196. 


t 

TECHNICALITIES  DEFEATING  JUSTICE  111 

being  alive  at  its  termination  if  he  has  a  determined 
adversary.'  ^ 

The  moral  difficulties  of  administering  such  a  system 
were  very  great,  and  in  many  cases  English  juries  in 
dealing  with  it  adopted  a  rough  and  ready  code  of  morals 
of  their  own.  Though  they  had  sworn  to  decide  every 
case  according  to  the  law  as  it  was  stated  to  them,  and 
according  to  the  evidence  that  was  laid  before  them,  they 
frequently  refused  to  follow  legal  technicalities  which 
would  lead  to  substantial  injustice,  and  they  still  more 
frequently  refused  to  bring  in  verdicts  according  to 
evidence  when  by  doing  so  they  would  consign  a  prisoner 
to  a  savage,  excessive,  or  unjust  punishment.  Some  of 
the  worst  abuses  of  the  English  law  were  mitigated  by 
the  perjuries  of  juries  who  refused  to  put  them  in  force. 

The  great  legal  reforms  of  the  past  half-century  have 
removed  most  of  these  abuses,  and  have  at  the  same  time 
introduced  a  wider  and  juster  spirit  into  the  practical 
administration  of  the  law.  Yet  even  now  different  judges 
sometimes  differ  widely  in  the  importance  they  attach  to 
substantial  justice  and  to  legal  technicalities ;  and  even 
now  one  of  the  advantages  of  trial  by  jury  is  that  it  brings 
the  masculine  common  sense  and  the  unsophisticated  sense 
of  justice  of  unprofessional  men  into  fields  that  would 
otherwise  be  often  distorted  by  ingenious  subtleties.  It 
is,  however,  far  less  in  the  position  of  the  judge  than  in 
the  position  of  an  advocate  that  the  most  difficult  moral 
questions  of  the  legal  profession  arise.  The  difference 
between  an  unscrupulous  advocate  and  an  advocate  who 
is  governed  by  a  high  sense  of  honour  and  morality  is 
very  manifest,  but  at  best  there  must  be  many  things  in 

>  See  the  admirable  article  by  Lord  Justice  Bowen  on  '  The  Administra- 
tion of  the  Law  '  in  Ward's  Beign  of  Queen  Victoria,  vol.  i. 


112  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

the  profession  from  which  a  very  sensitive  conscience 
would  recoil,  and  things  must  be  said  and  done  which 
can  hardly  be  justified  except  on  the  ground  that  the  exis- 
tence of  this  profession  and  the  prescribed  methods  of  its 
action,  are  in  the  long  run  indispensable  to  the  honest 
administration  of  justice. 

The  same  method  of  reasoning  applies  to  other  great 
departments  of  life.  In  politics  it  is  especially  needed. 
In  free  countries  party  government  is  the  best,  if  not  the 
only,  way  of  conducting  public  affairs,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  conduct  it  without  a  large  amount  of  moral  compro- 
mise ;  without  a  frequent  surrender  of  private  judgment 
and  will.  A  good  man  will  choose  his  party  through 
disinterested  motives,  and  with  a  firm  and  honest  con- 
viction that  it  represents  the  cast  of  policy  most  beneficial 
to  the  country.  He  will  on  grave  occasions  assert  his 
independence  of  party,  but  in  the  large  majority  of  cases 
he  must  act  with  his  party  even  if  they  are  pursuing 
courses  in  some  degree  contrary  to  his  own  judgment. 

Every  one  who  is  actively  engaged  in  politics — every 
one  especially  who  is  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons 
— must  soon  learn  that  if  the  absolute  independence  of 
individual  judgment  were  pushed  to  its  extreme,  political 
anarchy  would  ensue.  The  complete  concurrence  of  a 
large  number  of  independent  judgments  in  a  complicated 
measure  is  impossible.  If  party  government  is  to  be 
carried  on,  there  must  be,  both  in  the  Cabinet  and  in 
Parliament,  perpetual  compromise.  The  first  condition 
of  its  success  is  that  the  Government  should  have  a 
stable,  permanent,  disciplined  support  behind  it,  and  in 
order  that  this  should  be  attained  the  individual  member 
must  in  most  cases  vote  with  his  party.  Sometimes 
he  must  support  a  measure  which  he  knows  to  be  bad, 


THE   ETHICS   OF  PARTY  US 

because  its  rejection  would  involve  a  change  of  government 
which  he  believes  would  be  a  still  greater  evil  than  its 
acceptance,  and  in  order  to  prevent  this  evil  he  may  have 
to  vote  a  direct  negative  to  some  resolution  containing  a 
statement  which  he  believes  to  be  true.  At  the  same  time, 
if  he  is  an  honest  man,  he  will  not  be  a  mere  slave  of 
party.  Sometimes  a  question  arises  which  he  considers  so 
supremely  important  that  he  will  break  away  from  his 
party  and  endeavour  at  all  hazards  to  carry  or  to  defeat  it. 
Much  more  frequently  he  will  either  abstain  from  voting, 
or  will  vote  against  the  Government  on  a  particular 
question,  but  only  when  he  knows  that  by  taking  this 
course  he  is  simply  making  a  protest  which  will  produce 
no  serious  political  complication.  On  most  great  measures 
there  is  a  dissentient  minority  in  the  Government  party,  and 
it  often  exercises  a  most  useful  influence  in  representing 
independent  opinion,  and  bringing  into  the  measure  modi- 
fications and  compromises  which  allay  opposition,  gratify 
minorities,  and  soften  differences.  But  the  action  of  that 
party  will  be  governed  by  many  motives  other  than  a 
simple  consideration  of  the  merits  of  the  case.  It  is  not 
sufficient  to  say  that  they  must  vote  for  every  resolution 
which  they  believe  to  be  true,  for  every  bill  or  clause  of  a 
bill  which  they  believe  to  be  right,  and  must  vote  against 
every  bill,  or  clause,  or  resolution  about  which  they  form 
an  opposite  judgment.  Sometimes  they  will  try  in  private 
to  prevent  the  introduction  of  a  measure,  but  when  it  is 
introduced  they  will  feel  it  their  duty  either  positivel}^  to 
support  it,  or  at  least  to  abstain  from  protesting  against 
it.  Sometimes  they  will  either  vote  against  it  or  abstain 
from  voting  at  all,  but  only  when  the  majority  is  so 
large  that  it  is  sure  to  be  carried.  Sometimes  their  con- 
duct will  be  the  result  of  a  bargain — they  will  vote  for 

I 


114  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

one  portion  of  a  bill  of  which  they  disapprove  because 
they  have  obtained  from  the  Government  a  concession  on 
another  which  they  think  more  important.  The  nature 
of  their  opposition  will  depend  largely  upon  the  strength 
or  weakness  of  the  Government,  upon  the  size  of  the 
majority,  upon  the  degree  in  which  a  change  of  ministry 
would  affect  the  general  policy  of  the  country,  upon  the 
probability  of  the  measure  they  object  to  being  finally 
extinguished,  or  returning  in  another  year  either  in  an 
improved  or  in  a  more  dangerous  form.  Questions  of 
proportion  and  degree  and  ulterior  consequences  will 
continually  sway  them.  Measures  are  often  opposed,  not 
on  their  own  intrinsic  merits,  but  on  account  of  precedents 
they  might  establish ;  of  other  measures  which  might  grow 
out  of  them  or  be  justified  by  them. 

Not  unfrequently  it  happens  that  a  section  of  the 
dominant  party  is  profoundly  discontented  with  the 
policy  of  the  Government  on  some  question  which  they 
deem  of  great  importance.  They  find  themselves  in- 
capable of  offering  any  direct  and  successful  opposition, 
but  their  discontent  will  show  itself  on  some  other 
Government  measure  on  which  votes  are  more  evenly 
divided.  Possibly  they  may  oppose  that  measure.  More 
probably  they  will  fail  to  attend  regularly  at  the  divi- 
sions, or  will  exercise  their  independent  judgments  on 
its  clauses  in  a  manner  they  would  not  have  done  if 
their  party  allegiance  had  been  unshaken.  And  this  con- 
duct is  not  mere  revenge.  It  is  a  method  of  putting 
pressure  on  the  Government  in  order  to  obtain  conces- 
sions on  matters  which  they  deem  of  paramount  im- 
portance. In  the  same  way  they  will  seek  to  gain 
supporters  by  political  alliances.  Few  things  in  parlia- 
mentary government  are  more  dangerous  or  more  apt  to 


OBSTRUCTION   IN  PARLIAMENT  115 

lead  to  corruption  than  the  bargains  which  the  Americans 
call  log-rolling ;  but  it  is  inevitable  that  a  member  who 
has  received  from  a  colleague,  or  perhaps  from  an  oppo- 
nent, assistance  on  a  question  which  he  believes  to  be  of 
the  highest  importance,  will  be  disposed  to  return  that 
assistance  in  some  case  in  which  his  own  feelings  and 
opinions  are  not  strongly  enlisted. 

Then,  too,  we  have  to  consider  the  great  place  which 
obstruction  plays  in  parliamentary  government.  It  con- 
stantly happens  that  a  measure  to  which  scarcely  any  one 
objects  is  debated  at  inordinate  length  for  no  other  reason 
than  to  prevent  a  measure  which  is  much  objected  to 
from  being  discussed.  Measures  may  be  opposed  by 
hostile  votes,  but  they  are  often  much  more  efficaciously 
opposed  by  calculated  delays,  by  multiplied  amendments 
or  speeches,  by  some  of  the  many  devices  that  can  be 
employed  to  clog  the  legislative  machine.  There  are  large 
classes  of  measures  on  which  governments  or  parliaments 
think  it  desirable  to  give  no  opinion,  or  at  least  no  imme- 
diate opinion,  though  they  cannot  prevent  their  introduc- 
tion, and  many  methods  are  employed  with  the  real, 
though  not  avowed  and  ostensible  object  of  preventing  a 
vote  or  even  a  ministerial  declaration  upon  them  Some- 
times Parliament  is  quite  ready  to  acknowledge  the 
abstract  justice  of  a  proposal,  but  does  not  think  it  ripe 
for  legislation.  In  such  cases  the  second  reading  of  the 
Bill  will  probably  be  accepted,  but  to  the  indignation  and 
astonishment  of  its  supporters  outside  the  House,  it  will 
be  obstructed,  delayed  or  defeated  in  Committee  with  the 
acquiescence,  or  connivance,  or  even  actual  assistance  of 
some  of  those  who  had  voted  for  it.  Some  measures  in 
the  eyes  of  some  members  involve  questions  of  principle 
so  sacred   that    they   will  admit   of   no   compromise  of 

I  2 


116  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

expediency,  but  most  measures  are  deemed  open  to 
compromise  and  accepted,  rejected,  or  modified  under 
some  of  the  many  motives  I  have  described. 

All  this  curious  and  indispensable  mechanism  of  party 
government  is  compatible  with  a  high  and  genuine  sense 
of  public  duty,  and  unless  such  a  sense  at  the  last  resort 
dominates  over  all  other  considerations,  political  life  will 
inevitably  decline.  At  the  same  time  it  is  obvious  that 
many  things  have  to  be  done  from  which  a  very  rigid 
and  austere  nature  would  recoil.  To  support  a  Govern- 
ment when  he  believes  it  to  be  wrong,  or  to  oppose 
a  measure  which  he  believes  to  be  right,  to  connive  at 
evasions  which  are  mere  pretexts,  and  at  delays  which  rest 
upon  grounds  that  are  not  openly  avowed,  is  sometimes, 
and  indeed  not  unfrequently,  a  parliamentary  duty.  A 
member  of  Parliament  must  often  feel  himself  in  the 
position  of  a  private  in  an  army,  or  a  player  in  a  game,  or 
an  advocate  in  a  law  case.  On  many  questions  each  party 
represents  and  defends  the  special  interests  of  some  par- 
ticular classes  in  the  country.  When  there  are  two 
plausible  alternative  courses  to  be  pursued  which  divide 
public  opinion,  the  Opposition  is  almost  bound  by  its 
position  to  enforce  the  merits  of  the  course  opposed  to 
that  adopted  by  the  Government.  In  theory  nothing 
could  seem  more  absurd  than  a  system  of  government  in 
which,  as  it  has  been  said,  the  ablest  men  in  Parliament 
are  divided  into  two  classes,  one  side  being  charged 
with  the  duty  of  carrying  on  the  government  and  the 
other  with  that  of  obstructing  and  opposing  them  in 
their  task,  and  in  which  on  a  vast  multitude  of  uncon- 
^^ected  questions  these  two  great  bodies  of  very  competent 
pn,  with  the  same  facts  and  arguments  before  them, 
habitually  go  into  opposite  lobbies.     In   practice,  how- 


RELATIONS   OF  THE  FRONT  BENCHES  117 

ever,  parliamentary  government  by  great  parties,  in 
countries  where  it  is  fully  understood  and  practised,  is 
found  to  be  admirably  efficacious  in  representing  every 
variety  of  political  opinion  ;  in  securing  a  constant  super- 
vision and  criticism  of  men  and  measures  ;  and  in  form- 
ing a  safety  valve  through  which  the  dangerous  humours 
of  society  can  expand  without  evil  to  the  community. 

This,  however,  is  only  accomplished  by  constant  com- 
promises which  are  seldom  successfully  carried  out  without 
a  long  national  experience.  Party  must  exist.  It  must 
be  maintained  as  an  essential  condition  of  good  govern- 
ment, but  it  must  be  subordinated  to  the  public  interests, 
and  in  the  public  interests  it  must  be  in  many  cases  sus- 
pended. There  are  subjects  which  cannot  be  introduced 
without  the  gravest  danger  into  the  arena  of  party  con- 
troversy. Indian  politics  are  a  conspicuous  example,  and 
although  foreign  policy  cannot  be  kept  wholly  outside 
it,  the  dangers  connected  with  its  party  treatment  are 
extremely  great.  Many  measures  of  a  different  kind  are 
conducted  with  the  concurrence  of  the  two  front  benches. 
A  cordial  union  on  large  classes  of  questions  between  the 
heads  of  the  rival  parties  is  one  of  the  first  conditions  of 
successful  parliamentary  government.  The  opposition 
leader  must  have  a  voice  in  the  conduct  of  business,  on 
the  questions  that  should  be  brought  forward,  and  on  the 
questions  that  it  is  for  the  public  interest  to  keep  back. 
He  is  the  official  leader  of  systematic,  organised  opposi- 
tion to  the  Government,  yet  he  is  on  a  large  number  of 
questions  their  most  powerful  ally.  He  must  frequently 
have  confidential  relations  with  them,  and  one  of  his 
most  useful  functions  is  to  prevent  sections  of  his  party 
from  endeavouring  to  snatch  party  advantages  by  courses 
which  might  endanger  public  interests.     If  the  country  is 


118  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

to  be  well  governed  there  must  be  a  large  amount  of 
continuity  in  its  policy  ;  certain  conditions  and  principles 
of  administration  must  be  inflexibly  maintained,  and  in 
great  national  emergencies  all  parties  must  unite. 

In  questions  which  lie  at  the  heart  of  party  politics, 
also  some  amount  of  compromise  is  usually  effected. 
Debate  not  only  elicits  opinions  but  also  suggests  alter- 
natives and  compromises,  and  very  few  measures  are 
carried  by  a  majority  which  do  not  bear  clear  traces  of 
the  action  of  the  minority.  The  line  is  constantly  de- 
flected now  on  one  side  and  now  on  the  other,  and 
(usually  without  much  regard  to  logical  consistency) 
various  and  opposing  sentiments  are  in  some  measure 
gratified.  If  the  lines  of  party  are  drawn  with  an  in- 
flexible rigidity  ;  and  if  the  majority  insist  on  the  full 
exercise  of  their  powers,  parliamentary  government  may 
become  a  despotism  as  crushing  as  the  worst  autocracy — a 
despotism  which  is  perhaps  even  more  dangerous  as  the 
sense  of  responsibilitj''  is  diminished  by  being  divided.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  latitude  conceded  to  individual 
opinion  is  excessive,  Parliament  inevitably  breaks  into 
groups,  and  parliamentary  government  loses  much  of  its 
virtue.  When  coalitions  of  minorities  can  at  any  time 
overthrow  a  ministry,  the  whole  force  of  Government 
is  lost.  The  temptation  to  corrupt  bargains  with  par- 
ticular sections  is  enormously  increased,  and  the  declining 
control  of  the  two  front  benches  will  be  speedily  followed 
by  a  diminished  sense  of  responsibility,  and  by  the  increased 
influence  of  violent,  eccentric,  exaggerated  opinions.  It 
is  of  the  utmost  moment  that  the  policy  of  an  opposition 
should  be  guided  by  its  most  important  men,  and 
especially  by  men  who  have  had  the  experience  and  the 
responsibility  of  office,   and  who  know   that  they  may 


RELATIONS  OF  MEMBERS  TO   CONSTITUENTS       119 

have  that  responsibility  again.  But  the  healthy  latitude 
of  individual  opinion  and  expression  in  a  party  is 
like  most  of  those  things  we  are  now  considering,  a 
question  of  degree,  and  not  susceptible  of  clear  and  sharp 
definition. 

Other  questions  of  a  somewhat  different  nature,  but  in- 
volving grave  moral  considerations,  arise  out  of  the  rela- 
tions between  a  member  and  his  constituents.  In  the  days 
when  small  boroughs  were  openly  bought  in  the  market, 
this  was  sometimes  defended  on  the  ground  of  the  com- 
plete independence  of  judgment  which  it  gave  to  the 
purchasing  member.  Romilly  and  Henry  Flood  are  said 
to  have  both  purchased  their  seats  with  the  express  ob'ect 
of  securing  such  independence.  In  the  political  philosophy 
of  Burke,  no  doctrine  is  more  emphatically  enforced  than 
that  a  member  of  Parliament  is  a  representative  but 
not  a  delegate  ;  that  he  owes  to  his  constituents  not  only 
his  time  and  his  services,  but  also  the  exercise  of  his  inde- 
pendent and  unfettered  judgment ;  that  while  reflecting 
the  general  cast  of  their  politics,  he  must  never  suffer  him- 
self to  be  reduced  to  a  mere  mouthpiece,  or  accept  binding 
instructions  prescribing  on  each  particular  measure  the 
course  he  may  pursue  ;  that  after  his  election  he  must 
consider  himself  a  member  of  an  Imperial  Parliament 
rather  than  the  representative  of  a  particular  locality, 
and  must  subordinate  local  and  special  interests  to  the 
wider  and  more  general  interests  of  the  whole  nation. 

The  conditions  of  modern  political  life  have  greatly 
narrowed  this  liberty  of  judgment.  In  most  constitu- 
encies a  member  can  only  enter  Parliament  fettered  by 
many  pledges  relating  to  specific  measures,  and  in  every 
turn  of  policy,  sections  of  his  constituents  will  attempt 
to  dictate  his  course  of  action.     Certain  large  and  general 


120  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

pledges  naturally  and  properly  precede  his  election.  He 
is  chosen  as  a  supporter  or  opponent  of  the  Government ; 
he  avows  himself  an  adherent  of  certain  broad  lines  of 
policy,  and  he  also  represents  in  a  special  degree  the 
interests  and  the  distinctive  type  of  opinion  of  the  class 
or  industry  which  is  dominant  in  his  constituency.  But 
even  at  the  time  of  election  he  often  finds  that  on  some 
particular  question  in  which  his  electors  are  much 
interested  he  differs  from  them,  though  they  consent,  in 
spite  of  it,  to  elect  him ;  and,  in  the  course  of  a  long 
Parliament,  others  are  very  apt  unexpectedly  to  arise. 
Political  changes  take  place  which  bring  into  the  fore- 
ground matters  which  at  the  time  of  the  election  seemed 
very  remote,  or  produce  new  questions,  or  give  rise  to 
unforeseen  party  combinations,  developments,  and  ten- 
dencies. It  will  often  happen  that  on  these  occasions  a 
member  will  think  differently  from  the  majority  of  his 
electors,  and  he  must  meet  the  question  how  far  he  must 
sacrifice  his  judgment  to  theirs,  and  how  far  he  may  use 
the  influence  which  their  votes  have  given  him  to  act  in 
opposition  to  their  wishes  and  perhaps  even  to  their 
interests.  Burke,  for  example,  found  himself  in  this 
position  when,  being  member  for  Bristol,  he  considered 
it  his  duty  to  support  the  concession  of  Free-trade  to 
Ireland,  although  his  constituents  had,  or  thought  they 
had,  a  strong  interest  in  commercial  restrictions  and 
monopoly.  In  our  own  day  it  has  happened  that  mem- 
bers, representing  manufacturing  districts  of  Lancashire, 
have  found  themselves  unexpectedly  called  upon  to  vote 
upon  some  measure  for  crippling  or  extending  rival  manu- 
factures in  India;  for  opening  new  markets  by  some 
very  dubious  aggression  in  a  distant  land  ;  or  for  limiting 
the  child  labour  employed  in  the  local  manufacture,  and 


RELATIONS   OF   jVIEMBERS  TO   CONSTITUENTS      121 

these  members  have  often  beheved  that  the  right  course 
was  a  course  which  was  exceedingly  repugnant  to  great 
sections  of  their  electors. 

Sometimes,  too,  a  member  is  elected  on  purely  secular 
issues,  but  in  the  course  of  the  Parliament  one  of  those 
fierce,  sudden  storms  of  religious  sentiment,  to  which  Eng- 
land is  occasionally  liable,  sweeps  over  the  land,  and  he 
finds  himself  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  a  great  portion 
of  his  constituency.  In  other  cases  the  party  which  he 
entered  Parliament  to  support,  pursues,  on  some  grave 
question,  a  line  of  policy  which  he  believes  to  be  seriously 
wrong,  and  he  goes  into  partial  or  even  complete  and 
bitter  opposition.  Differences  of  this  kind  have  fre- 
quently arisen  when  there  is  no  question  of  any  interested 
motive  having  influenced  the  member.  Sometimes  in  such 
cases  he  has  resigned  his  seat,  and  gone  to  his  electors 
for  re-election.  In  other  cases  he  remains  in  Parliament 
till  the  next  election.  Each  case,  however,  must  be  left 
to  individual  judgment,  and  no  clear,  definite,  unwaver- 
ing moral  line  can  be  drawn.  The  member  will  consider 
the  magnitude  of  the  disputed  question,  both  in  his  ow^n 
eyes  and  in  the  eyes  of  those  whom  he  represents  ;  its 
permanent  or  transitory  character,  the  amount  and 
importance  of  the  majority  opposed  to  his  views,  the 
length  of  time  that  is  likely  to  elapse  before  a  dissolution 
will  bring  him  face  to  face  with  his  constituents.  In 
matters  which  he  does  not  consider  very  urgent  or  impor- 
tant, he  will  probably  sacrifice  his  own  judgment  to  that 
of  his  electors,  at  least  so  far  as  to  abstain  from  voting, 
or  from  pressing  his  own  views.  In  graver  matters  it 
is  his  duty  boldly  to  face  unpopularitj^  or  perhaps  even 
take  the  extreme  step  of  resigning  his  seat. 

The  cases  in  which  a  member  of  Parliament  finds  it 


122  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

his  duty  to  support  a  measure  which  he  believes  to  be 
positively  bad,  on  the  ground  that  greater  evils  would 
follow  its  rejection,  are  happily  not  very  numerous.  He 
can  extricate  himself  from  many  moral  difficulties  by 
sometimes  abstaining  from  voting  or  from  the  expression 
of  his  real  opinions,  and  most  measures  are  of  a  composite 
character  in  which  good  and  evil  elements  combine,  and 
may  in  some  degree  be  separated.  In  such  measures  it 
is  often  possible  to  accept  the  general  principle  while 
opposing  particular  details,  and  there  is  considerable 
scope  for  compromise  and  modification.  But  the  cases 
in  which  a  member  of  Parliament  is  compelled  to  vote 
for  measures  about  which  he  has  no  real  knowledge 
or  conviction  are  very  many.  Crowds  of  measures  of  a 
highly  complex  and  technical  character,  affecting  depart- 
ments of  life  with  which  he  has  had  no  experience, 
relating  to  the  multitudinous  industries,  interests  and 
conditions  of  a  great  people,  are  brought  before  him  at 
very  short  notice;  and  no  intellect,  however  powerful, 
no  industry,  however  great,  can  master  them.  It  is 
utterly  impossible  that  mere  extemporised  knowledge, 
the  listening  to  a  short  debate,  the  brief  study  which  a 
member  of  Parliament  can  give  to  a  new  subject,  can 
place  him  on  a  real  level  of  competence  with  those  who 
can  bring  to  it  a  life-long  knowledge  or  experience. 

A  member  of  Parliament  will  soon  find  that  he  must 
select  a  class  of  subjects  which  he  can  himself  master, 
while  on  many  others  he  must  vote  blindly  with  his 
party.  The  two  or  three  capital  measures  in  a  session 
are  debated  with  such  a  fulness  that  both  the  House  and 
the  country  become  thoroughly  competent  to  judge  them, 
and  in  those  cases  the  preponderance  of  argument  will 
have  great  weight.     A  powerful  ministry  and  a  strongly 


CHARACTER  OF  PARTY   VOTES  12S 

organised  party  may  carry  such  a  measure  in  spite  of  it, 
but  they  will  be  obliged  to  accept  amendments  and 
modifications,  and  if  they  persist  in  their  policy  their 
position  both  in  the  House  and  in  the  country  will  sooner 
or  later  be  inevitably  changed.  But  a  large  number  of 
measures  have  a  more  restricted  interest,  and  are  far  less 
widely  understood.  The  House  of  Commons  is  rich  in 
expert  knowledge,  and  few  subjects  are  brought  before 
it  which  some  of  its  members  do  not  thoroughly  under- 
stand ;  but  in  a  vast  number  of  cases  the  majority  who 
decide  the  question  are  obliged  to  do  so  on  the  most 
superficial  knowledge.  Very  often  it  is  physically  im- 
possible for  a  member  to  obtain  the  knowledge  he  requires. 
The  most  important  and  detailed  investigation  has  taken 
place  in  a  committee  upstairs  to  which  he  did  not  belong, 
or  he  is  detained  elsewhere  on  important  parliamentary 
business  while  the  debate  is  going  on.  Even  when  this 
is  not  the  case,  scarcely  anyone  has  the  physical  or 
mental  power  which  would  enable  him  to  sit  intelligently 
through  all  the  debates.  Every  member  of  Parliament 
is  familiar  with  the  scene,  when,  after  a  debate,  carried 
on  before  nearly  empty  benches,  the  division  bell  rings, 
and  the  members  stream  in  to  decide  the  issue.  There 
is  a  moment  of  uncertainty.  The  questions  *  Which  side 
are  we  ?  '  '  What  is  it  about  ?  '  may  be  heard  again  and 
again.  Then  the  Speaker  rises,  and  with  one  magical 
sentence  clears  the  situation.  It  is  the  sentence  in  which 
he  announces  that  the  tellers  for  the  Ayes  or  Noes,  as 
the  case  may  be,  are  the  Government  whips.  It  is  not 
argument,  it  is  not  eloquence,  it  is  this  single  sentence 
which  in  countless  cases  determines  the  result  and 
moulds  the  legislation  of  the  country.  Many  members, 
it  is  true,  are  not  present  in  the  division  lobby,  but  they 


V24:  THE  MAP  OF   LIFE 

are  usually  paired— that  is  to  say,  they  have  taken  their 
sides  before  the  discussion  began ;  perhaps  without  even 
knowing  what  subject  is  to  be  discussed,  perhaps  for  all 
the  many  foreseen  and  unforeseen  questions  that  may 
arise  during  long  periods  of  the  session. 

It  is  a  strange  process,  and  to  a  new  member  who  has 
been  endeavouring  through  his  life  to  weigh  arguments 
and  evidence  with  scrupulous  care,  and  treat  the  forma- 
tion and  expression  of  opinions  as  a  matter  of  serious 
duty,  it  is  at  first  very  painful.  He  finds  that  he  is 
required  again  and  again  to  give  an  effective  voice  in  the 
great  council  of  the  nation,  on  questions  of  grave  impor- 
tance, with  a  levity  of  conviction  upon  which  he  would 
not  act  in  the  most  trivial  affairs  of  private  life.  No 
doctor  would  prescribe  for  the  slightest  malady;  no 
lawyer  would  advise  in  the  easiest  case ;  no  wise  man 
would  act  in  the  simplest  transactions  of  private  business, 
or  would  even  give  an  opinion  to  his  neighbour  at  a 
dinner  party  without  more  knowledge  of  the  subject  than 
that  on  which  a  member  of  Parliament  is  often  obliged  to 
vote.  But  he  soon  finds  that  for  good  or  evil  this  system 
is  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  working  of  the  machine. 
If  no  one  voted  except  on  matters  he  really  understood 
and  cared  for,  four-fifths  of  the  questions  that  are  deter- 
mined by  the  House  of  Commons  would  be  determined  by 
mere  fractions  of  its  members,  and  in  that  case  parlia- 
mentary government  under  the  party  system  would  be 
impossible.  The  stable,  disciplined  majorities  without 
which  it  can  never  be  efficiently  conducted  would  be 
at  an  end.  Those  who  refuse  to  accept  the  conditions 
of  parliamentary  life  should  abstain  from  entering 
into  it. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  one  justification  of  this  sj^stem 


GROWING  POWER  OF  THE   CABINET  125 

is  to  be  found  in  the  belief  that  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, as  it  is  worked  in  England,  is  on  the  whole  a  good 
thing,  and  that  this  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  its 
existence.  Probably  also  with  most  men  it  strengthens 
the  disposition  to  support  the  Government  on  matters 
which  they  do  not  understand  and  in  which  grave  party 
issues  are  not  involved.  They  know  that  these  minor 
questions  have  at  least  been  carefully  examined  on  their 
merits  by  responsible  men,  and  with  the  assistance  of  the 
best  available  expert  knowledge. 

This  fact  goes  far  to  reconcile  us  to  the  tendency  to 
give  governments  an  almost  complete  monopoly  in  the 
initiation  of  legislation  which  is  so  evident  in  modern 
parliamentary  life.  Much  useful  legislation  in  the  past 
has  been  due  to  private  and  independent  members,  but 
the  chance  of  bills  introduced  by  such  members  ever 
becoming  law  is  steadily  diminishing.  This  is  not  due 
to  any  recognised  constitutional  change,  but  to  the  con- 
stantly increasing  pressure  of  government  business  on  the 
time  of  the  House,  and  especially  to  what  is  called  the 
twelve  o'clock  rule,  terminating  debates  at  midnight. 

It  is  a  rule  which  is  manifestly  wise,  for  it  limits  on 
ordinary  occasions  the  hours  of  parliamentary  work  to  a 
period  within  the  strength  of  an  average  man.  Parlia- 
mentary government  has  many  dubious  aspects,  but  it 
never  appears  worse  than  in  the  cases  which  may  still 
sometimes  be  seen  when  a  Government  thinks  fit  to  force 
through  an  important  measure  by  all-night  sittings,  and 
when  a  weary  and  irritated  House  which  has  been  sitting 
since  three  or  four  in  the  afternoon  is  called  upon  at  a 
corresponding  hour  of  the  early  morning  to  pronounce 
upon  grave  and  difficult  questions  of  principle,  and  to 
deal  with  the  serious  interests  of  large  classes.     The  utter 


126  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

and  most  natural  incapacity  of  the  House  at  such  an  hour 
for  sustained  argument ;  its  anxiety  that  each  successive 
amendment  should  be  despatched  in  five  minutes ;  the 
readiness  with  which  in  that  tired,  feverish  atmosphere, 
surprises  and  coalitions  may  be  effected  and  solutions 
accepted,  to  which  the  House  in  its  normal  state  would 
scarcely  have  listened,  must  be  evident  to  every  observer. 
Scenes  of  this  kind  are  among  the  greatest  scandals  of 
Parliament,  and  the  rule  which  makes  them  impossible, 
except  in  the  closing  weeks  of  the  Session,  has  been  one 
of  the  greatest  improvements  in  modem  parliamentary 
work.  But  its  drawback  is  that  it  has  greatly  limited  the 
possibility  of  private  member  legislation.  It  is  in  late 
and  rapid  sittings  that  most  measures  of  this  kind  passed 
through  their  final  stages,  and  since  the  twelve  o'clock 
rule  has  been  adopted,  a  much  smaller  number  of  bills 
introduced  by  private  members  find  their  way  to  the 
Statute  Book. 


TRUSTEESHIP  IN   POLITICS  127 


CHAPTBK    X 

It  is  obvious  from  the  considerations  that  have  been 
adduced  in  the  last  Chapter  that  the  moral  limitations 
and  conditions  under  which  an  ordinary  member  of  Par- 
liament is  compelled  to  work  are  far  from  ideal.  An 
upright  man  will  try  conscientiously,  under  these  condi- 
tions, to  do  his  best  for  the  cause  of  honesty  and  for  the 
benefit  of  his  country,  but  he  cannot  essentially  alter 
them,  and  they  present  many  temptations,  and  tend  in 
many  ways  to  blur  the  outlines  separating  good  from  evil. 
He  will  find  himself  practically  pledged  to  support  his 
party  in  measures  which  he  has  never  seen  and  in  policies 
that  are  not  yet  developed ;  to  vote  in  some  cases  contrary 
to  his  genuine  belief,  and  in  many  cases  without  real 
knowledge ;  to  act  throughout  his  political  career  on 
many  motives  other  than  a  reasoned  conviction  of  the 
substantial  merits  of  the  question  at  issue. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  difficult  questions  which  arise 
when  the  wishes  of  his  constituents  are  at  variance  with 
his  own  genuine  opinions.  Another  and  a  wider  question 
is  how  far  he  is  bound  to  make  what  he  considers  the 
interests  of  the  nation  his  guiding  light,  and  how  far  he 
should  subordinate  what  he  believes  to  be  their  interests 
to  their  prejudices  and  wishes.  One  of  the  first  lessons 
that  every  active  politician  has  to  learn  is  that  he  is  a 
trustee   bound   to   act   for   men   whose    opinions,   aims, 


128  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

desires  and  ideals  are  often  very  different  from  his  own. 
No  man  who  holds  the  position  of  member  of  Parliament 
should   divest  himself   of   this   consideration,  though   it 
applies  to  different  classes  of  members  in  different  degrees. 
A  private  member  should  not  forget  it,  but  at  the  same 
time,  being  elected  primarily  and  specially  to  represent 
one  particular  element  in  the  national  life,  he  will  concen- 
trate his  attention  more  exclusively  on  a  narrow  circle, 
though  he  has  at  the  same  time  more  latitude  of  express- 
ing unpopular  opinions  and  pushing  unripe  and  unpopular 
causes  than  a  member  who  is  taking  a  large  and  official 
part  in  the  government  of  the  nation.     The  opposition 
front  bench  occupies  a  somewhat  different  position.   They 
are  the  special  and  organised  representatives  of  a  par- 
ticular party  and  its  ideas,  but  the  fact  that  they  may  be 
called  upon  at  any  time  to  undertake  the  government  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole,  and  that  even  while  in  opposition  they 
take  a  great  part  in  moulding  its  general  policy,  imposes 
on  them  limitations  and  restrictions  from  which  a  mere 
private  member  is  in  a  great  degree  exempt.     When  a 
party   comes   into   power   its  position   is   again   slightly 
altered.     Its  leaders  are  certainly  not  detached  from  the 
party  policy  they  had  advocated  in  opposition.     One  of 
the  main  objects  of  party  is  to  incorporate  certain  political 
opinions  and  the  interests  of  certain  sections  of  the  com- 
munity in  an  organised  body  which  will  be  a  steady  and 
permanent  force  in  politics.     It  is  by  this  means  that 
political  opinions  are  most  likely  to  triumph ;  that  class 
interests  are  most  effectually  protected.     But  a  Govern- 
ment cannot  govern  merely  in  the  interests  of  a  party. 
It  is  a  trustee  for  the  whole  nation,  and  one  of  its  first 
duties  is  to  ascertain  and  respect  as  far  as  possible  the 
wishes  as  well  as  the  interests  of  all  sections. 


MORALS   OF  TEMPERANCE   LEGISLATION  129 

Concrete  examples  may  perhaps  show  more  clearly 
than  abstract  statements  the  kind  of  difficulties  that  I 
am  describing.  Take,  for  example,  the  large  class  of  pro- 
posals for  limiting  the  sale  of  strong  drink  by  such 
methods  as  local  veto  or  Sunday  closing  of  public-houses. 
One  class  of  politicians  take  up  the  position  of  uncom- 
promising opponents  of  the  drink  trade.  They  argue  that 
strong  drink  is  beyond  all  question  in  England  the  chief 
source  of  the  misery,  the  vice,  the  degradation  of  the 
poor ;  that  it  not  only  directly  ruins  tens  of  thousands, 
body  and  soul,  but  also  brings  a  mass  of  wretchedness 
that  it  is  difficult  to  overrate  on  their  innocent  families ; 
that  the  drunkard's  craving  for  drink  often  reproduces 
itself  as  a  hereditary  disease  in  his  children ;  and  that  a 
legislator  can  have  no  higher  object  and  no  plainer  duty 
than  by  all  available  means  to  put  down  the  chief  obstacle 
to  the  moral  and  material  well-being  of  the  people.  The 
principle  of  compulsion,  as  they  truly  say,  is  more  and 
more  pervading  all  departments  of  industry.  It  is  idle 
to  contend  that  the  State  which,  while  prohibiting  other 
forms  of  Sunday  trading,  gives  a  special  privilege  to  the 
most  pernicious  of  all,  has  not  the  right  to  limit  or  to 
withdraw  it,  and  the  legislature  which  levies  vast  sums 
upon  the  whole  community  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
police  as  well  as  for  poor-houses,  prisons  and  criminal 
administration,  ought  surely,  in  the  interests  of  the  whole 
community,  to  do  all  that  is  in  its  power  to  suppress  the 
main  cause  of  pauperism,  disorder  and  crime. 

Another  class  of  politicians  approach  the  question 
from  a  wholly  different  point  of  view.  They  emphati- 
cally object  to  imposing  upon  grown-up^  men  a  system  of 
moral  restriction  which  is  very  properly  imposed  upon 
children.     They  contend  that  adult  men  who  have  assumed 

K 


130  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

all  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  life,  and  have  even  a 
voice  in  the  government  of  the  country,  should  regulate 
their  own  conduct,  as  far  as  they  do  not  directly  interfere 
with  their  neighbours,  without  legal  restraint,  bearing 
themselves  the  consequences  of  their  mistakes  or  excesses. 
This,  they  say,  is  the  first  principle  of  freedom,  the  first 
condition  in  the  formation  of  strong  and  manly  characters. 
A  poor  man,  who  desires  on  his  Sunday  excursion  to 
obtain  moderate  refreshment  such  as  he  likes  for  himself 
or  his  family,  and  who  goes  to  the  public-house — probably 
in  most  cases  to  meet  his  friends  and  discuss  the  village 
gossip  over  a  glass  of  beer — is  in  no  degree  interfering 
with  the  liberty  of  his  neighbours.  He  is  doing  nothing 
that  is  wrong ;  nothing  that  he  has  not  a  perfect  right  to 
do.  No  one  denies  the  rich  man  access  to  his  Club  on 
Sunday,  and  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  poor  man 
has  neither  the  private  cellars,  nor  the  comfortable  and 
roomy  homes  of  the  rich,  and  has  infinitely  fewer  oppor- 
tunities of  recreation.  Because  some  men  abuse  this 
right  and  are  unable  to  drink  alcohol  in  moderation,  are 
all  men  to  be  prevented  from  drinking  it  at  all,  or  at  least 
from  drinking  it  on  Sunday  ?  Because  two  men  agree 
not  to  drink  it,  have  they  a  right  to  impose  the  same 
obligation  on  an  unwilling  third  ?  Have  those  who  never 
enter  a  public-house,  and  by  their  position  in  life  never 
need  to  enter  it,  a  right,  if  they  are  in  a  majority,  to 
close  its  doors  against  those  who  use  it  ?  On  such  grounds 
these  politicians  look  with  extreme  disfavour  on  all  this 
restrictive  legislation  as  unjust,  partial  and  inconsistent 
with  freedom. 

Very  few,  however,  would  carry  either  set  of  arguments 
to  their  full  logical  consequences.  Not  many  men  who 
have  had  any  practical  experience  in  the  management  of 


LEGITIMATE   TIME-SERVING  131 

men  would  advocate  a  complete  suppression  of  the  drink 
trade,  and  still  fewer  would  put  it  on  the  basis  of  com- 
plete free  trade,  altogether  exempt  from  special  legislative 
restriction.  To  responsible  politicians  the  course  to  be 
pursued  will  depend  mainly  on  fluctuating  conditions  of 
public  opinion.  Restrictions  will  be  imposed,  but  only 
when  and  as  far  as  they  are  supported  by  a  genuine  public 
opinion.  It  must  not  be  a  mere  majority,  but  a  large 
majority;  a  steady  majority;  a  genuine  majority  repre- 
senting a  real  and  earnest  desire,  and  especially  in  the 
classes  who  are  most  directly  affected,  not  a  mere  facti- 
tious majority  such  as  is  often  created  by  skilful  organisa- 
tion and  agitation  ;  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  few  confront- 
pig  the  indifference  of  the  many.     In  free  and  democratic 

>tates  one  of  the  most  necessary  but  also  one  of  the  most 
icult  arts  of  statesmanship  is  that  of  testing  public 

)pinion,  discriminating  between  what  is  real,  growing  and 

)ermanent  and  what  is  transient,  artificial  and  declining. 

lS  a  French  writer  has  said,  '  The  great  art  in  politics 

consists  not  in  hearing  those  who  speak,  but  in  hearing 
those  who  are  silent.'     On  such  questions  as  those  I  have 

lentioned  we  may  find  the  same  statesman  without  any 
inconsistency  supporting  the  same  measures  in  one 

)art  of  the  kingdom  and  opposing  them  in  another,  sup- 
porting them  at  one  time  because  public  opinion  runs 
strongly  in  their  favour,  opposing  them  at  another 
because  that  public  opinion  has  grown  weak. 

One  of  the  worst  moral  evils  that  grow  up  in  demo- 
cratic countries  i^  the  excessive  tendency  to  time-serving 
and  popularity  hunting,  and  the  danger  is  all  the  greater 
because  in  a  certain  sense  both  of  these  things  are  a 
necessity  and  even  a  duty.  Their  moral  quality  depends 
mainly  on   their  motive.     The  question  to  be  asked  is 

K   2 


132  THE  MAP   OF   LIFE 

whether  a  politician  is  acting  from  personal  or  merely 
party  objects  or  from  honourable  public  ones.  Every 
statesman  must  form  in  his  own  mind  a  conception 
whether  a  prevailing  tendency  is  favourable  or  opposed 
to  the  real  interests  of  the  country.  It  will  depend  upon 
this  judgment  whether  he  will  endeavour  to  accelerate  or 
retard  it ;  whether  he  will  yield  slowly  or  readily  to  its 
pressure,  and  there  are  cases  in  which,  at  all  hazards  of 
popularity  and  influence,  he  should  inexorably  oppose  it. 
But  in  the  long  run,  under  free  governments,  political 
systems  and  measures  must  be  adjusted  to  the  wishes  of 
the  various  sections  of  the  people,  and  this  adjustment  is 
the  great  work  of  statesmanship.  In  judging  a  proposed 
measure  a  statesman  must  continually  ask  himself  whether 
the  country  is  ripe  for  it — whether  its  introduction,  how- 
ever desirable  it  might  be,  would  not  be  premature,  as 
public  opinion  is  not  yet  prepared  for  it  ?  Whether,  even 
though  it  be  a  bad  measure,  it  is  not  on  the  whole  better 
to  vote  for  it,  as  the  nation  manifestly  desires  it  ? 

The  same  kind  of  reasoning  applies  to  the  difficult 
question  of  education,  and  especially  of  religious  educa- 
tion. Every  one  who  is  interested  in  the  subject  has 
his  ovni  conviction  about  the  kind  of  education  which 
is  in  itself  the  best  for  the  people,  and  also  the  best  for 
the  Government  to  undertake.  He  may  prefer  that  the 
State  should  confine  itself  to  purely  secular  education, 
leaving  all  religious  teaching  to  voluntary  agencies,  or  he 
may  approve  of  the  kind  of  undenominational  religious 
teaching  of  the  English  School  Board,  or  he  may  be  a 
strong  partisan  of  one  of  the  many  forms  of  distinctly 
accentuated  denominational  education.  But  when  he 
comes  to  act  as  a  responsible  legislator,  he  should  feel 
that  the  question  is  not  merely  what  he  considers  the 


LEGISLATION  ON   EDUCATION  133 

best,  but  also  what  the  parents  of  the  children  most 
desire.  It  is  true  that  the  authority  of  parents  is  not 
absolutely  recognised.  The  conviction  that  certain  things 
are  essential  to  the  children,  and  to  the  well-being  and 
vigour  of  the  State,  and  the  conviction  that  parents 
are  often  by  no  means  the  best  judges  of  this,  makes 
legislators,  on  some  important  subjects,  override  the 
wishes  of  the  parents.  The  severe  restrictions  imposed 
on  child  labour ;  the  measure — unhappily  now  greatly  re- 
laxed— providing  for  children's  vaccination,  and  the  legis- 
lation protecting  children  from  ill  treatment  by  their 
parents  are  illustrations,  and  the  most  extensive  and  far- 
reaching  of  all  exceptions  is  education.  After  much 
misgiving,  both  parties  in  the  State  have  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  essential  to  the  future  of  the  chil- 
fdren,  and  essential  also  to  the  maintenance  of  the  relative 
position  of  England  in  the  great  competition  of  nations, 
that  at  least  the  rudiments  of  education  should  be  made 
universal,  and  they  are  also  convinced  that  this  is  one 
of  the  truths  which  perfectly  ignorant  parents  are  least 
competent  to  understand.  Hence,  the  system  which  of  late 
years  has  so  rapidly  extended  of  compulsory  education. 

Many  nations  have  gone  further,  and  have  claimed 
|for  the  State  the  right  of  prescribing  absolutely  the  kind 
of  education  that  should  be  permitted,  or  at  least  the 
kind  of  education  which  shall  be  exclusively  supported 
by  State  funds.  In  England  this  is  not  the  case.  A 
great  variety  of  forms  of  education  corresponding  to  the 
wishes  and  opinions  of  different  classes  of  parents  receive 
assistance  from  the  State,  subject  to  the  conditions  of 
submitting  to  certain  tests  of  educational  efficiency,  and 
to  a  conscience  clause  protecting  minorities  from  inter- 
ference with  their  faith. 


134  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

A  case  which  once  caused  much  moral  heart-burning 
among  good  men  was  the  endowment  by  the  State  of 
Maynooth  College,  which  is  absolutely  under  the  control 
of  the  Koman  Catholic  priesthood,  and  intended  to  educate 
their  Divinity  students  in  the  Eoman  Catholic  faith.  The 
endowment  dated  from  the  period  of  the  old  Irish  Pro- 
testant Parliament;  and  when  on  the  Disestablishment 
of  the  Irish  Church  it  came  to  an  end,  it  was  replaced  by 
a  large  capital  grant  from  the  Irish  Church  Fund,  and  it 
is  upon  the  interest  of  that  grant  that  the  College  is  still 
supported.  This  grant  was  denounced  by  many  excellent 
men  on  the  ground  that  the  State  was  Protestant ;  that 
it  had  a  definite  religious  belief  upon  which  it  was  bound 
in  conscience  to  act,  and  that  it  was  a  sinful  apostacy 
to  endow  out  of  the  public  purse  the  teaching  of  what 
all  Protestants  believe  to  be  superstition,  and  what  many 
Protestants  believe  to  be  idolatrous  and  soul-destroying 
error.  The  strength  of  this  kind  of  feeling  in  England 
is  shown  by  the  extreme  difficulty  there  has  been  in  per- 
suading public  opinion  to  acquiesce  in  any  form  of  that 
concurrent  endowment  of  religions  which  exists  so  widely 
and  works  so  well  upon  the  Continent. 

Many,  again,  who  have  no  objection  to  the  policy  of 
assisting  by  State  subsidies  the  theological  education  of 
the  priests  are  of  opinion  that  it  is  extremely  injurious 
both  to  the  State  and  to  the  young  that  the  secular  educa- 
tion, and  especially  the  higher  secular  education,  of  the 
Irish  Catholic  population  should  be  placed  under  their  com- 
plete control,  and  that,  through  their  influence,  the  Irish 
Catholics  should  be  strictly  separated  during  the  period 
of  their  education  from  their  fellow-countrymen  of  other 
religions.  No  belief,  in  my  own  opinion,  is  better  founded 
than  this.     If,  however,  those  who  hold  it  find  that  there 


LEGISLATION   ON   EDUCATION  135 

is  a  great  body  of  Catholic  parents  who  persistently 
desire  this  control  and  separation  ;  who  will  not  be  satisfied 
with  any  removal  of  disabilities  and  sectarian  influence 
in  systems  of  common  education  ;  who  object  to  all  mixed 
and  undenominational  education  on  the  ground  that  their 
priests  have  condemned  it,  and  that  they  are  bound  in 
conscience  to  follow  the  orders  of  their  priests,  and  who 
are  in  consequence  withholding  from  their  children  the 
education  they  would  otherwise  have  given  them,  such 
men  will  in  my  opinion  be  quite  justified  in  modifying 
their  policy.  As  a  matter  of  expediency  they  will  argue 
that  it  is  better  that  these  Catholics  should  receive  an 
indifferent  university  education  than  none  at  all ;  and 
that  it  is  exceedingly  desirable  that  what  is  felt  to 
be  a  grievance  by  many  honest,  upright  and  loyal  men 
should  be  removed.  As  a  matter  of  principle,  they  con- 
tend that  in  a  country  where  higher  education  is  largely 
and  variously  endowed  from  public  sources,  it  is  a  real 
grievance  that  there  should  be  one  large  body  of  the 
people  who  can  derive  little  or  no  benefit  from  those 
endowments.  It  is  no  sufficient  answer  to  say  that  the 
objection  of  the  Catholic  parents  is  in  most  cases  not 
spontaneous,  but  is  due  to  the  orders  of  their  priests,  since 
we  are  dealing  with  men  who  believe  it  to  be  a  matter  of 
conscience  on  such  questions  to  obey  their  priests.  Nor  is 
it,  I  think,  sufficient  to  argue — as  very  many  enlightened 
men  will  do — that  everything  that  could  be  in  the  smallest 
degree  repugnant  to  the  faith  of  a  Catholic  has  been 
eliminated  from  the  education  which  is  imposed  on  them 
in  existing  universities ;  that  every  post  of  honour,  emolu- 
ment and  power  has  been  thrown  open  to  them;  that 
I  for  generations  they  gladly  followed  the  courses  of  Dublin 
University,  and  are  even  now  permitted  by  their  eccle- 
: 


136  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

siastics  to  follow  those  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge ;  that  the 
nation  having  adopted  the  broad  principle  of  nnsectarian 
education  open  to  all,  no  single  sect  has  a  right  to  excep- 
tional treatment,  though  every  sect  has  an  undoubted 
right  to  set  up  at  its  own  expense  such  education  as  it 
pleases.  The  answer  is  that  the  objection  of  a  certain 
class  of  Koman  Catholics  in  Ireland  is  not  to  any  abuses 
that  may  take  place  under  the  system  of  mixed  and  un- 
denominational education,  but  to  the  system  itself,  and 
that  the  particular  type  of  education  of  which  alone  one 
considerable  class  of  taxpayers  can  conscientiously  avail 
themselves  has  only  been  set  up  by  voluntary  effort,  and 
is  only  inadequately  and  indirectly  endowed  by  the  State. ^ 
Slowly  and  very  reluctantly  governments  in  England 
have  come  to  recognise  the  fact,  that  the  trend  of 
Catholic  opinion  in  Ireland  is  as  clearly  in  the  direc- 
tion of  denominationalism  as  the  trend  of  Noncon- 
formist English  opinion  is  in  the  direction  of  undenomi- 
nationalism,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  carry  on  the 
education  of  a  priest-ridden  Catholic  people  on  the  same 
lines  as  a  Protestant  one.  Primary  education  has  become 
almost  absolutely  denominational,  and,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, a  crowd  of  endowments  are  given  to  exclusively 
Catholic  institutions.  On  such  grounds,  many  who 
entertain  the  strongest  antipathy  to  the  priestly  control 
of  higher  education  are  prepared  to  advocate  an  in- 
creased endowment  of  some  University  or  College  which 

'  This  sentence  may  appear  obscure  to  English  readers.  The  explana- 
tion is,  that  by  an  ingenious  arrangement,  devised  by  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
the  professors  of  the  Jesuit  College  in  Stephen's  Green  are  nearly  all  made 
Fellows  of  the  Koyal  University,  those  of  the  Arts  Faculty  receiving  400Z. 
a  year,  and  three  Medical  Fellows  150Z.  each.  By  this  device  the  Catholic 
college  has  in  reality  a  State  endowment  to  the  amount  of  between  6,000Z. 
and  7,000Z.  a  year.     This  fact  considerably  reduces  the  grievance. 


LEGISLATION   ON   EDUCATION  137 

is  distinctly  sacerdotal,  while  strenuously  upholding  side 
by  side  with  it  the  undenominational  institutions  which 
they  believe  to  be  incomparably  better,  and  which  are  at 
present  resorted  to  not  only  by  all  Protestants,  but  also 
by  a  not  inconsiderable  body  of  Irish  Catholics. 

Many  of  my  readers  will  probably  come  to  an  opposite 
conclusion  on  this  very  difficult  question.  The  object  of 
what  I  have  written  is  simply  to  show  the  process  by 
which  a  politician  may  conscientiously  advocate  the 
establishment  and  endowment  of  a  thing  which  he  be- 
lieves to  be  intrinsically  bad.  It  is  said  to  have  been  a 
saying  of  Sir  Kobert  Inglis — an  excellent  representative 
|Of  an  old  school  of  extreme,  but  most  conscientious 
^Toryism — that  '  he  would  never  vote  one  penny  of  public 
money  for  any  purpose  which  he  did  not  think  right  and 
Igood.'     The  impossibility  of  carrying  out  such  a  principle 

LUst  be  obvious  to  any  one  who  has  truly  grasped  the 
Inature  of  representative  government,  and  the  duty  of  a 

lember  of  Parliament  to  act  as  a  trustee  for  all  classes 
fin  the  community.  In  the  exercise  of  this  function, 
pvery  conscientious  member  is  obliged  continually  to  vote 
[money  for  purposes  which  he  dislikes.  In  the  particular 
instance  I  have  just  given,  the  process  of  reasoning  I 
[have  described  is  purely  disinterested,  but  of  course  it  is 
pot  by  such  a  process  of  pure  reasoning  that  such  a 
iquestion  will  be  determined.  English  and  Scotch  mem- 
bers will  have  to  consider  the  effects  of  their  vote  on 
Itheir  own  constituencies,  where  there  are  generally  large 
t'sections  of  electors  with  very  little  knowledge  of  the 
rspecial  circumstances  of  Irish  education,  but  very  strong 
[feelings  about  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church.    Statesmen 

ill  have  to  consider  the   ulterior   and  various  ways  in 

^hich   their   policy    may   affect   the    whole   social   and 


138  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

political  condition  of  Ireland,  while  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  Irish  members  are  elected  by  small 
farmers  and  agricultural  labourers  who  could  never  avail 
themselves  of  University  education,  and  who  on  all 
matters  relating  to  education  act  blindly  at  the  dictation 
of  their  priests. 

Inconsistency  is  no  necessary  condemnation  of  a  poli- 
tician, and  parties  as  well  as  individual  statesmen  have 
abundantly  shown  it.  It  would  lead  me  too  far  in  a  book 
in  which  the  moral  difficulties  of  politics  form  only  one 
subdivision,  to  enter  into  the  history  of  English  parties, 
but  those  who  will  do  so  will  easily  convince  themselves 
that  there  is  hardly  a  principle  of  political  action  that  has 
not  in  party  history  been  abandoned,  and  that  not  un- 
frequently  parties  have  come  to  advocate  at  one  period  of 
their  history  the  very  measures  which  at  another  period 
they  most  strenuously  resisted.  Changed  circumstances, 
the  growth  or  decline  of  intellectual  tendencies,  party 
strategy,  individual  influence  have  all  contributed  to  these 
mutations,  and  most  of  them  have  been  due  to  very 
blended  motives  of  patriotism  and  self-interest. 

In  judging  the  moral  quality  of  the  changes  of  party 
leaders,  the  element  of  time  will  usually  be  of  capital 
importance.  Violent  and  sudden  reversals  of  policy  are 
never  effected  by  a  party  without  a  great  loss  of  moral 
weight  ;  though  there  are  circumstances  under  which 
they  have  been  imperatively  required.  No  one  will  now 
dispute  the  integrity  of  the  motives  that  induced  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  and  Sir  Kobert  Peel  to  carry 
Catholic  Emancipation  in  1829,  when  the  Clare  election 
had  brought  Ireland  to  the  verge  of  Kevolution  ;  and  the 
conduct  of  Sir  Kobert  Peel  in  carrying  the  repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws  was  certainly  not  due  to  any  motive  either  of 


POLICY   OF  PEEL   AND   DISRAELI  139 

personal  or  party  ambition,  though  it  may  be  urged  with 
force,  that  at  a  time  when  he  was  still  the  leader  of  the 
Protectionist  party  his  mind  had  been  manifestly  moving 
in  the  direction  of  Free-trade,  and  that  the  Irish  famine, 
though  not  a  mere  pretext,  was  not  wholly  the  cause 
of  the  surrender.  In  each  of  these  cases  a  ministry 
pledged  to  resist  a  particular  measure,  introduced  and 
carried  it,  and  did  so  without  any  appeal  to  the  elec- 
tors. The  justification  was  that  the  measure  in  their 
eyes  had  become  absolutely  necessary  to  the  public 
welfare,  and  that  the  condition  of  politics  made  it  im- 
possible for  them  either  to  carry  it  by  a  dissolution  or 
to  resign  the  task  into  other  hands.  Had  Sir  Kobert 
Peel  either  resigned  office  or  dissolved  Parliament  after 
the  Clare  election  in  1828,  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
measure  of  Catholic  Emancipation  could  not  have  been 
carried,  and  its  postponement,  in  his  belief,  would  have 
thrown  Ireland  into  a  dangerous  rebellion.  Pew  greater 
misfortunes  have  befallen  party  government  than  the 
failure  of  the  "Whigs  to  form  a  ministry  in  1845.  Had 
they  done  so,  as  Sir  Eobert  Peel  unquestionably  desired, 
the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  would  have  been  carried 
by  statesmen  who  were  in  some  measure  supported  by  the 
Free-trade  party,  and  not  by  statesmen  who  had  obtained 
their  power  as  the  special  representatives  of  the  agricul- 
tural interests. 

Another  case  which  in  a  party  point  of  view  was  more 
successful,  but  which  should  in  my  opinion  be  much 
more  severely  judged,  was  the  Keform  Bill  of  1867.  The 
Conservative  party,  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Disraeli, 
defeated  Mr.  Gladstone's  Eeform  Bill  mainly  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  an  excessive  step  in  the  direction  of 
Democracy.     The  victory  placed  them  in  office  and  they 


140  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

then  declared  that,  as  the  question  had  been  raised,  they 
must  deal  with  it  themselves.  They  introduced  a  Bill 
carrying  the  suffrage  to  a  much  lower  point  than  that 
which  the  late  Government  had  proposed,  but  they  sur- 
rounded it  with  a  number  of  provisions  securing  addi- 
tional representation  for  particular  classes  and  interests 
which  would  have  materially  modified  its  democratic 
character. 

But  for  these  safeguarding  provisions  the  party  would 
certainly  not  have  tolerated  the  introduction  of  such  a 
measure,  yet  in  the  face  of  opposition  their  leader  dropped 
them  one  by  one  as  of  no  capital  importance,  and  by  a 
leadership  which  was  a  masterpiece  of  unscrupulous  adroit- 
ness succeeded  in  inducing  his  party  to  carry  a  measure 
far  more  democratic  than  that  which  they  had  a  few 
months  before  denounced  and  defeated.  It  was  argued 
that  the  question  must  be  settled ;  that  it  must  be  placed 
on  a  permanent  and  lasting  basis ;  that  it  must  no  longer 
be  suffered  to  be  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  Whigs, 
and  that  the  Tory  Eeform  Bill,  though  it  was  acknow- 
ledged to  be  a  *  leap  in  the  dark,'  had  at  least  the  result  of 
'  dishing  the  Whigs.'  There  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  in 
accordance  with  the  genuine  convictions  of  Disraeli.  He 
belonged  to  a  school  of  politics  of  which  Bolingbroke, 
Carteret  and  Shelburne,  and,  in  some  periods  of  his  career, 
Chatham  were  earlier  representatives  who  had  no  real 
sjonpathy  with  the  preponderance  of  the  aristocratic 
element  in  the  old  Tory  party,  who  had  a  decided  disposi- 
tion to  appeal  frankly  to  democratic  support,  and  who 
believed  that  a  strong  executive  resting  on  a  broad  demo- 
cratic basis  was  the  true  future  of  Toryism.  He  antici- 
pated to  a  remarkable  degree  the  school  of  political 
thought  which  has  triumphed  in  our  own  day,  though  he 


VARYING   IMPORTANCE   OF  PARTY  141 

did  not  live  to  witness  its  triumph.  At  the  same  time 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Eeform  Bill  of  1867  in  the 
form  in  which  it  was  ultimately  carried  was  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  wishes  and  policy  of  his  party  in  the 
beginning  of  the  session,  and  as  inconsistent  as  any  policy 
could  be  with  their  language  and  conduct  in  the  session 
that  preceded  it. 

A  parliamentary  government  chosen  on  the  party 
system  is,  as  we  have  seen,  at  once  the  trustee  of 
the  whole  nation,  bound  as  such  to  make  the  welfare 
of  the  whole  its  supreme  end,  and  also  the  special 
representative  of  particular  classes,  the  special  guardian 
of  their  interests,  aims,  wishes,  and  principles.  The 
two  points  of  view  are  not  the  same,  and  grave  diffi- 
culties, both  ethical  and  political,  have  often  to  be  en- 
countered in  endeavouring  to  harmonise  them.  It  is,  of 
course,  not  true  that  a  party  object  is  merely  a  matter  of 
place  or  power,  and  naturally  a  different  thing  from  a 
patriotic  object.  The  very  meaning  of  party  is  that  public 
men  consider  certain  principles  of  government,  certain 
lines  of  policy,  the  protection  and  development  of  par- 
ticular interests,  of  capital  importance  to  the  nation,  and 
they  are  therefore  on  purely  public  grounds  fully  justified 
in  making  it  a  main  object  to  place  the  government  of 
the  country  in  the  hands  of  their  party.  The  importance, 
however,  of  maintaining  a  particular  party  in  power  varies 
greatly.  In  many,  probably  in  most,  periods  of  English 
history  a  change  of  government  means  no  violent  or  far- 
reaching  alteration  in  policy.  It  means  only  that  one  set 
of  tendencies  in  legislation  will  for  a  time  be  somewhat 
relaxed,  and  another  set  somewhat  intensified ;  that  the 
interests  of  one  class  will  be  somewhat  more  and  those  of 
another  class  somewhat  less  attended  to ;  that  the  rate 


142  THE  MAP   OF   LIFE 

of  progress  or  change  will  be  slightly  accelerated  or  re- 
tarded. Sometimes  it  means  even  less  than  this.  Opinions 
on  the  two  front  benches  are  so  nearly  assimilated  that  a 
change  of  government  principally  means  the  removal  for  a 
time  from  of&ce  of  ministers  who  have  made  some  isolated 
administrative  blunders  or  incurred  some  individual  un- 
popularity quite  apart  from  their  party  politics.  It  means 
that  ministers  who  are  jaded  and  somewhat  worn  out  by 
several  years'  continuous  work,  and  of  whom  the  country 
had  grown  tired,  are  replaced  by  men  who  can  bring 
fresher  minds  and  energies  to  the  task ;  that  patronage 
in  all  its  branches  having  for  some  years  gone  mainly 
to  one  party,  the  other  party  are  now  to  have  their  turn. 
There  are  periods  when  the  country  is  well  satisfied  with 
the  general  policy  of  a  government  but  not  with  the  men 
who  carry  it  on.  Ministers  of  excellent  principles  prove 
inefficient,  tactless,  or  unfortunate,  or  quarrels  and  jealousies 
arise  among  them,  or  difficult  negotiations  are  going  on 
with  foreign  nations  which  can  be  best  brought  to  a  suc- 
cessful termination  if  they  are  placed  in  the  hands  of  fresh 
men,  unpledged  and  unentangled  by  their  past.  The 
country  wants  a  change  of  government  but  not  a  change 
of  policy,  and  under  such  circumstances  the  task  of  a 
victorious  opposition  is  much  less  to  march  in  new  direc- 
tions than  to  mark  time,  to  carry  on  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  on  the  same  lines,  but  with  greater  administrative 
skill.  In  such  periods  the  importance  of  party  objects  is 
much  diminished  and  a  policy  which  is  intended  merely 
to  keep  a  party  in  power  should  be  severely  condemned. 

Sometimes,  however,  it  happens  that  a  party  has  com- 
mitted itself  to  a  particular  measure  which  its  opponents 
believe  to  be  in  a  high  degree  dangerous,  or  even  ruinous 
to  the  country.     In   that   case  it  becomes  a  matter  of 


» 


TEMPTATIONS   TO   WAR  143 

supreme  importance  to  keep  this  party  out  of  o£&ce,  or  if 
they  are  in  office,  to  keep  them  in  a  position  of  permanent 
debility  till  this  dangerous  project  is  abandoned.  Under 
such  circumstances  statesmen  are  justified  in  carrying  party 
objects  and  purely  party  legislation  much  further  than  in 
other  periods.  To  strengthen  their  own  party,  to  gain  for 
it  the  largest  amount  of  popularity,  to  win  the  support  of 
different  fractions  of  the  House  of  Commons  becomes  a 
great  public  object,  and  in  order  to  carry  it  out  sacrifices 
of  policy  and  in  some  degree  of  principle ;  the  acceptance 
of  measures  which  the  party  had  once  opposed  and  the 
adjournment  or  abandonment  of  measures  to  which  it  had 
been  pledged,  which  would  once  have  been  very  properly 
condemned,  become  justifiable.  The  supreme  interest  of 
the  State  is  the  end  and  the  justification  of  their  policy, 
and  alliances  are  formed  which  under  less  pressing  cir- 
cumstances would  have  been  impossible,  and  which  once 
established  sometimes  profoundly  change  the  permanent 
character  of  party  politics.  Here,  as  in  nearly  all  political 
matters,  an  attention  to  proportion  and  degree ;  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  less  for  the  attainment  of  the  greater,  marks 
the  path  both  of  wisdom  and  of  duty. 

The  temptations  of  party  politicians  are  of  many 
kinds  and  vary  greatly  with  different  stages  of  political 
development.  The  worst  is  the  temptation  to  war.  War 
undertaken  without  necessity,  or  at  least  without  serious 
justification,  is,  according  to  all  sound  ethics,  the  gravest 
of  crimes,  and  among  its  causes  motives  of  the  kind  I 
have  indicated  may  be  often  detected.  Many  wars  have 
been  begun  or  have  been  prolonged  in  order  to  consoHdate 
a  dynasty  or  a  party ;  in  order  to  give  it  popularity  or  at 
least  to  save  it  from  unpopularity ;  in  order  to  divert  the 
minds  of  men  from  internal  questions  which  had  become 


UNIVERSITY 


144  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

dangerous  or  embarrassing,  or  to  efface  the  memory  of 
past  quarrels,  mistakes,  or  crimes.^  Experience  unfortu- 
nately shows  only  too  clearly  how  easily  the  combative 
passions  of  nations  can  be  aroused  and  how  much  popu- 
larity may  be  gained  by  a  successful  war.  Even  in  this 
case,  it  is  true,  war  usually  impoverishes  the  country  that 
wages  it,  but  there  are  large  classes  to  whom  it  is  by  no 
means  a  calamity.  The  high  level  of  agricultural  prices  ; 
the  brilliant  careers  opened  to  the  military  and  naval 
professions  ;  the  many  special  industries  which  are  imme- 
diately stimulated  ;  the  rise  in  the  rate  of  interest ;  the 
opportunities  of  wealth  that  spring  from  violent  fluctua- 
tions on  the  Stock  Exchange  ;  even  the  increased  attrac- 
tiveness of  the  newspapers,  all  tend  to  give  particular 
classes  an  interest  in  its  continuance.  Sometimes  it  is 
closely  connected  with  party  sympathies.  During  the 
French  wars  of  Anne,  the  fact  that  Marlborough  was  a 
Whig  and  that  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  who  was  the 
hope  of  the  Whig  party,  was  in  favour  of  the  war,  contri- 
buted very  materially  to  retard  the  peace.  A  state  of  great 
internal  disquietude  is  often  a  temptation  to  war,  not 
because  it  leads  to  it  directly,  but  because  rulers  find  a 
foreign  war  the  best  means  of  turning  dangerous  and  dis- 
turbing energies  into  new  channels  and  at  the  same  time 
strengthening  the  military  and  authoritative  elements  in 
the  community.  The  successful  transformation  of  the 
anarchy  of  the  great  French  Kevolution  into  a  career  of 
conquest  is  a  typical  example. 

•  See  e.g.  the  death-bed  counsels  of  Henry  IV.  to  his  son : — 

'  Therefore,  my  Harry, 
Be  it  thy  course  to  busy  giddy  minds 
With  foreign  quarrels;  that  action,  hence  borne  out. 
May  waste  the  memory  of  the  former  days.' 

Henry  IV.  Part  II.  Act.  IV.  So.  4. 


TEMPTATIONS   OF  DEMOCRACIES  145 

In  aristocratic  governments  such  as  existed  in  England 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  temptations  to  corruption 
were  especially  strong.  To  build  up  a  vast  system  of 
parliamentary  influence  by  rotten  boroughs  and  by  syste- 
matically bestowing  honours  on  those  who  could  control 
them — to  win  the  support  of  great  corporations  and  pro- 
fessions by  furthering  their  interests  and  abstaining  from 
all  efforts  to  reform  them  was  a  chief  part  of  the  state- 
craft of  the  time.  Class  privileges  in  many  forms  were 
created,  extended  and  maintained,  and  in  some  countries 
— though  much  less  in  England  than  on  the  Continent — 
the  burden  of  taxation  was  most  inequitably  distributed, 
falling  mainly  on  the  poor. 

In  democratic  governments  the  temptations  are  of  a 
different  kind.  Popularity  is  there  the  chief  source  of  power, 
and  the  supreme  tribunal  consists  of  numbers  counted  by 
the  head.  The  well  being  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
is  the  true  end  of  politics,  but  it  does  not  necessarily 
follow  that  the  opinion  of  the  least  instructed  majority 
is  the  best  guide  to  obtaining  it.  In  dwelling  upon  the 
temptations  of  politicians  under  such  a  system  I  do  not 
now  refer  merely  to  the  unscrupulous  agitator  or  dema- 
gogue who  seeks  power,  notoriety,  or  popularity  by 
exciting  class  envies  and  animosities,  by  setting  the  poor 
against  the  rich  and  preaching  the  gospel  of  public 
plunder — nor  would  I  dilate  upon  the  methods  so  largely 
employed  in  the  United  States  of  accumulating  by  skil- 
fully devised  electoral  machinery  great  masses  of  voting 
power  drawn  from  the  most  ignorant  voters  and  making 
use  of  them  for  purposes  of  corruption.  I  would  dwell 
rather  on  the  bias  which  almost  inevitably  obliges  the 
party  leader  to  measure  legislation  mainly  by  its  immedi- 
ate popularity,  and  its  consequent  success  in  adding  to  his 


146  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

voting  strength.  In  some  countries  this  tendency  shows 
itself  in  lavish  expenditure  on  public  works  which  provide 
employment  for  great  masses  of  workmen  and  give  a 
great  immediate  popularity  in  a  constituency,  leaving  to 
posterity  a  heavy  burden  of  accumulated  debt.  Much 
of  the  financial  embarrassments  of  Europe  is  due  to  this 
source,  and  in  most  countries  extravagance  in  government 
expenditure  is  more  popular  than  economy.  Sometimes  it 
shows  itself  in  a  legislation  which  regards  only  proximate 
or  immediate  effects  and  wholly  neglects  those  which  are 
distant  and  obscure.  A  far-sighted  policy  sacrificing  the 
present  to  a  distant  future  becomes  more  difficult ;  measures 
involving  new  principles,  but  meeting  present  embarrass- 
ments or  securing  immediate  popularity,  are  started  with 
little  consideration  of  the  precedents  they  are  establishing 
and  of  the  more  extensive  changes  that  may  follow  in 
their  train.  The  conditions  of  labour  are  altered  for  the 
benefit  of  the  existing  workmen,  perhaps  at  the  cost  of 
diverting  capital  from  some  great  form  of  industry,  making 
it  impossible  to  resist  foreign  competition  and  thus  in  the 
long  run  restricting  employment  and  seriously  injuring 
the  very  class  who  were  to  have  been  benefited. 

When  one  party  has  introduced  a  measure  of  this 
kind  the  other  is  under  the  strongest  temptation  to  out- 
bid it,  and  under  the  stress  of  competition  and  through 
the  fear  of  being  distanced  in  the  race  of  popularity 
both  parties  often  end  by  going  much  further  than 
either  had  originally  intended.  When  the  rights  of 
the  few  are  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the  many  there 
is  a  constant  tendency  to  prefer  the  latter.  It  may  be 
that  the  few  are  those  who  have  built  up  an  industry ; 
who  have  borne  all  the  risk  and  cost,  who  have  by  far  the 
largest  interest  in  its  success.     The  mere  fact  that  they 


NECESSITY  OF  ASSIMILATING  LEGISLATION       147 

are  the  few  determines  the  bias  of  the  legislators.  There 
is  a  constant  disposition  to  tamper  with  even  clearly  de- 
fined and  guaranteed  rights  if  by  doing  so  some  large 
class  of  voters  can  be  conciliated. 

Parliamentary  life  has  many  merits,  but  it  has  a 
manifest  tendency  to  encourage  short  views.  The  imme- 
diate party  interest  becomes  so  absorbing  that  men  find  it 
difficult  to  look  greatly  beyond  it.  The  desire  of  a  skilful 
debater  to  use  the  topics  that  will  most  influence  the 
audience  before  him,  or  the  desire  of  a  party  leader  to 
pursue  the  course  most  likely  to  be  successful  in  an  imme- 
diately impending  contest,  will  often  override  all  other 
considerations,  and  the  whole  tendency  of  parliamentary 
life  is  to  concentrate  attention  on  landmarks  which  are 
not  very  distant,  thinking  little  of  what  is  beyond. 

One  great  cause  of  the  inconsistency  of  parties  lies  in 
the  absolute  necessity  of  assimilating  legislation.  Many, 
for  example,  are  of  opinion  that  the  existing  tendency  to 
introduce  government  regulations  and  interferences  into 
all  departments  is  at  least  greatly  exaggerated,  and  that  it 
would  be  far  better  if  a  larger  sphere  were  left  to  individual 
action  and  free  contract.  But  if  large  departments  of 
industry  have  been  brought  under  the  system  of  regulation, 
it  is  practically  impossible  to  leave  analogous  industries 
under  a  different  system,  and  the  men  who  most  dislike 
the  tendency  are  often  themselves  obliged  to  extend  it. 
They  cannot  resist  the  contention  that  certain  legislative 
protections  or  other  special  favours  have  been  granted  to 
one  class  of  workmen,  and  that  there  is  no  real  ground 
for  distinguishing  their  case  from  that  of  others.  The 
dominant  tendency  will  thus  naturally  extend  itself,  and 
every  considerable  legislative  movement  carries  others 
irresistibly  in  its  train. 

I.  2 


148  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

The  pressure  of  this  consideration  is  most  painfully- 
felt  in  the  case  of  legislation  which  appears  not  simply- 
inexpedient  and  unwise,  but  distinctly  dishonest.  In 
legislation  relating  to  contracts  there  is  a  clear  ethical 
distinction  to  be  drawn.  It  is  fully  within  the  moral  right 
of  legislators  to  regulate  the  conditions  of  future  contracts. 
It  is  a  very  different  thing  to  break  existing  contracts,  or 
to  take  the  still  more  extreme  step  of  altering  their  condi- 
tions to  the  benefit  of  one  party  without  the  assent  of  the 
other,  leaving  that  other  party  bound  by  their  restrictions. 

Under  the  American  Constitution  such  legislation  is 
impossible  ;  for  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  Congress  to  pass 
any  law  violating  contracts.  In  England,  unfortunately, 
no  such  provision  exists.  The  most  glaring  and  undoubted 
instance  of  this  kind  is  to  be  found  in  the  Irish  land 
legislation,  which  was  begun  by  the  Ministry  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  but  which  has  been  largely  extended  by  the 
party  that  originally  most  strenuously  opposed  it.  Much 
may  no  doubt  be  said  to  palliate  it — agricultural  depres- 
sion, the  excessive  demand  for  land — the  fact  that  im- 
provements were  in  Ireland  usually  made  by  the  tenants 
(who,  however,  were  perfectly  aware  of  the  conditions 
under  which  they  made  them,  and  whose  rents  were 
proportionately  lower),  the  prevalence  in  some  parts  of 
Ireland  of  land  customs  unsanctioned  by  law — the  existence 
of  a  great  revolutionary  movement  which  had  brought 
the  country  into  a  condition  of  disgraceful  anarchy.  But 
when  all  this  has  been  admitted,  it  remains  indisputable 
to  every  clear  and  honest  mind  that  English  law  has 
taken  away  without  compensation  unquestionably  legal 
property  and  broken  unquestionably  legal  contracts.  A 
landlord  placed  a  tenant  on  his  farm  on  a  yearly  tenancy, 
but  if   he   desired   to   exercise   his   plain   legal   right  of 


IRISH  LAND  LEGISLATION  149 

resuming  it  at  the  termination  of  the  year,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  pay  a  compensation  '  for  disturbance,'  which 
might  amount  to  seven  times  the  yearly  rent.  A  landlord 
let  his  land  to  a  farmer  for  a  longer  period  under  a  clear 
written  contract  bearing  the  government  stamp,  and  this 
contract  defined  the  rent  to  be  paid,  the  conditions  under 
which  the  farm  w^as  to  be  held,  and  the  number  of  years 
during  which  it  w^as  to  be  alienated  from  its  owner.  The 
fundamental  clause  of  the  lease  distinctly  stipulated  that 
at  the  end  of  the  assigned  term  the  tenant  must  hand 
back  that  farm  to  the  owner  from  whom  he  received  it. 
The  law  has  interposed,  and  determined  that  the  rent 
which  this  farmer  had  undertaken  to  pay  shall  be  reduced 
by  a  government  tribunal  without  the  assent  of  the  owner, 
and  without  giving  the  owner  the  option  of  dissolving 
fthe  contract  and  seeking  a  new  tenant.  It  has  gone 
further,  and  provided  that  at  the  termination  of  the  lease 
the  tenant  shall  not  hand  back  the  land  to  the  owner 
Lccording  to  the  terms  of  his  contract,  but  shall  remain 
for  all  future  time  the  occupier,  subject  only  to  a  rent 

ixed  and  periodically  revised,  irrespective  of  the  wishes  of 
the  landlord,  by  an  independent  tribunal.  Vast  masses 
>f  property  in  Ireland  had  been  sold  under  the  Incumbered 

1  states  Act  by  a  government  tribunal  acting  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  and  each  purchaser 
)btained  from  this  tribunal  a  parliamentary  title  making 

dm  absolute  owner  of  the  soil  and  of  every  building  upon 
it,  subject  only  to  the  existing  tenancies  in  the  schedule. 

lO  accounts  of  the  earlier  history  of  the  property  were 
handed  to  him,  for  except  under  the  terms  of  the  leases 
which  had  not  yet  expired,  he  had  no  liability  for  anything 
in  the  past.  The  title  he  received  was  deemed  so  inde- 
feasible that  in  one  memorable  case,  where  by  mistake  a 


160  THE   I^IAP    OF  LIFE 

portion  of  the  property  of  one  man  had  been  included  in 
the  sale  of  the  property  of  another  man,  the  Court  of 
Appeal  decided  that  the  injustice  could  not  be  remedied, 
as  it  was  impossible,  except  in  the  case  of  intentional 
fraud,  to  go  behind  parliamentary  titles.^  In  cases  in 
which  the  land  was  let  at  low  rents,  and  in  cases  where 
tenants  held  under  leases  which  would  soon  expire,  the 
facility  of  raising  the  rents  was  constantly  specified  by 
the  authority  of  the  Court  as  an  inducement  to  purchasers. 
What  has  become  of  this  parliamentary  title?  Im- 
provements, if  they  had  been  made,  or  were  presumed  to 
have  been  made  by  tenants  anterior  to  the  sale,  have 
ceased  to  be  the  property  of  the  purchaser,  and  he  has  at 
the  same  time  been  deprived  of  some  of  the  plainest  and 
most  inseparable  rights  of  property.  He  has  lost  the 
power  of  disposing  of  his  farms  in  the  open  market,  of 
regulating  the  terms  and  conditions  on  which  he  lets 
them,  of  removing  a  tenant  whom  he  considers  unsuitable, 
of  taking  the  land  back  into  his  own  hands  when  the 
specified  term  of  a  tenancy  had  expired,  of  availing 
himself  of  the  enhanced  value  which  a  war  or  a  period  of 
great  prosperity,  or  some  other  exceptional  circumstance, 
may  have  given  to  his  property.  He  has  become  a 
simple  rent-charger  on  the  land  which  by  inheritance 
or  purchase  was  incontestably  his  own,  and  the  amount  of 
his  rent-charge  is  settled  and  periodically  revised  by  a 
tribunal  in  which  he  has  no  voice,  and  which  has  been 
given  an  absolute  power  over  his  estate.  He  bought  or 
inherited  an  exclusive  right.  The  law  has  turned  it  into 
a  dual  ownership.  A  tenant  right  which,  when  he 
obtained  his  property  was  wholly  unknown  to  the  law, 
and  was  only  generally  recognised  by  custom  in  one 
'  Lord  Lanesborough  v.  Keilly. 


IRISH   LAND   LEGISLATION  151 

province,  has  been  carved  out  of  it.  The  tenant  who 
happened  to  be  in  occupation  when  the  law  was  passed 
can,  without  the  consent  of  the  owner,  sell  to  another  the 
right  of  occupying  the  farm  at  the  existing  rent.  In 
numerous  cases  this  tenant  right  is  more  valuable  than 
the  fee  simple  of  the  farm.  In  many  cases  a  farmer  who 
had  eagerly  begged  to  be  a  tenant  at  a  specified  rent  has 
afterwards  gone  into  the  land  court  and  had  that  rent 
reduced,  and  has  then  proceeded  to  sell  the  tenant  right  for 
a  sum  much  more  than  equivalent  to  the  difference  between 
the  two  rents.  In  many  cases  this  has  happened  where  there 
could  be  no  possible  question  of  improvements  by  the  tenant. 
The  tenant  right  of  the  smaller  farms  has  steadily  risen  in 
proportion  as  the  rent  has  been  reduced.  In  many  cases, 
no  doubt,  the  excessive  price  of  tenant  right  may  be 
attributed  to  the  land  hunger  or  passion  for  land  specula- 
tion so  common  in  Ireland,  or  to  some  exceptional  cause 
inducing  a  farmer  to  give  an  extravagant  price  for  the 
tenant  right  of  a  particular  farm.  But  although  in  such 
instances  the  price  of  tenant  right  is  a  deceptive  test,  the 
movement,  when  it  is  a  general  one,  is  a  clear  proof  that 
the  reduction  of  rent  did  not  represent  an  equivalent 
decline  in  the  marketable  value  of  the  land,  but  was 
simply  a  gratuitous  transfer  by  the  State,  of  property 
from  one  person  to  another.  Having  in  the  first  place 
turned  the  exclusive  ownership  of  the  landlord  into  a 
simple  partnership,  the  tribunal  proceeded  in  defiance  of 
all  equity  to  throw  the  whole  burden  of  the  agricultural 
depression  on  one  of  the  two  partners.  The  law  did,  it  is 
true,  reserve  to  the  landlord  the  right  of  pre-emption,  or  in 
other  words  the  right  of  purchasing  the  tenant  right  when 
it  was  for  sale,  at  a  price  to  be  determined  by  the  Court,  and 
thus  becoming  once  more  the  absolute  owner  of  his  farm. 


152  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

The  sum  specified  by  the  Court  was  usually  about  sixteen 
years'  purchase  of  the  judicial  rent.  By  the  pajonent  of  this 
large  sum  he  may  regain  the  property  which  a  few  years 
ago  was  incontestably  his  own  ;  which  was  held  by  him 
under  the  most  secure  title  known  to  English  law,  and 
which  was  taken  from  him  not  by  any  process  of  honest 
purchase,  but  by  an  act  of  simple  legislative  confiscation. 

Whatever  palliations  of  expediency  may  be  alleged, 
the  true  nature  of  this  legislation  cannot  reasonably  be 
questioned,  and  it  has  established  a  precedent  which  is 
certain  to  grow.  The  point,  however,  on  which  I  would 
especially  dwell  is  that  the  very  party  which  most  strongly 
opposed  it  and  which  most  clearly  exposed  its  gross  and 
essential  dishonesty  have  found  themselves,  or  believed 
themselves  to  be,  bound  not  only  to  accept  it  but  to 
extend  it.  They  have  contended  that,  as  a  matter  of 
practical  politics,  it  is  impossible  to  grant  such  privileges 
to  one  class  of  agricultural  tenants  and  to  withhold  it 
from  others.  The  chief  pretext  for  this  legislation  in  its 
first  stages  was  that  it  was  for  the  benefit  of  very  poor 
tenants  who  were  incapable  of  making  their  own  bargains, 
and  that  the  fixity  of  tenure  which  the  law  gave  to  yearly 
tenants,  as  long  as  they  paid  their  rents,  had  been  very 
generally  voluntarily  given  them  by  good  landlords.  But 
the  measure  was  soon  extended  by  a  Unionist  govern- 
ment to  the  leaseholders,  who  are  the  largest  and  most 
independent  class  of  farmers,  and  who  held  their  land  for 
a  definite  time  and  under  a  distinct  written  contract.  It 
is  in  truth  much  more  the  shrewder  and  wealthier  farmers 
than  the  poor  and  helpless  ones  that  this  legislation  has 
chiefly  benefited. 

Instances  of  this  kind,  in  which  strong  expediency 
or  an  absolute  political  necessity  is  in  apparent  conflict 


DESIRE   TO  FORCE   QUESTIONS  153 

with  elementary  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  are  among 
the  most  difficult  with  which  a  politician  has  to  deal.  He 
must  govern  the  country  and  preserve  it  in  a  condition  of 
tolerable  order,  and  he  sometimes  persuades  himself  that 
without  a  capitulation  to  anarchy,  without  attacks  on 
property  and  violations  of  contract,  this  is  impossible. 
Whether  the  necessity  is  as  absolute,  or  the  expediency 
as  rightly  calculated  as  he  supposed,  may  indeed  be  open 
to  much  question,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  most  of 
the  English  statesmen  who  carried  the  Irish  agrarian  legis- 
lation sincerely  believed  it,  and  some  of  them  imagined  that 
they  were  giving  a  security  and  finality  to  the  property 
which  was  left,  that  would  indemnify  the  plundered  land- 
lords. Perhaps,  under  such  circumstances,  the  most  that 
can  be  said  is  that  wise  legislators  will  endeavour,  by  en- 
couraging purchase  on  a  large  scale,  gradually  to  restore 
the  absolute  ownership  and  the  validity  of  contract  which 
have  been  destroyed,  and  at  the  same  time  to  compensate 
indirectly — if  they  cannot  do  it  directly — the  former 
owners  for  that  portion  of  their  losses  which  is  not  due  to 
merely  economical  causes,  but  to  acts  of  the  legislature 
that  were  plainly  fraudulent. 

There  are  other  temptations  of  a  different  kind  with 
which  party  leaders  have  to  deal.  One  of  the  most 
serious  is  the  tendency  to  force  questions  for  which  there 
is  no  genuine  desire,  in  order  to  restore  the  unity  or  the 
zeal  of  a  divided  or  dispirited  party.  As  all  politicians 
know,  the  desire  for  an  attractive  programme  and  a 
popular  election  cry  is  one  of  the  strongest  in  politics, 
and  as  they  also  know  well,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
manufactured  public  opinion  and  artificially  stimulated 
agitation.  Questions  are  raised  and  pushed,  not  because 
they  are  for  the  advantage  of  the  country,  but  simply  for 


154  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  purposes  of  party.     The  leaders  have  often  little  or 
no  power  of  resistance.     The  pressure  of  their  followers, 
or  of  a  section  of  their  followers,  becomes  irresistible ;  ill- 
considered  hopes  are  held  out ;  rash  pledges  are  extorted, 
and  the  party  as  a  whole  is  committed.     Much  premature 
and  mischievous  legislation  may  be  traced  to  such  causes. 
Another  very  difficult  question  is  the  manner  in  which 
governments  should  deal  with  the  acts  of  public  servants 
which  are  intended  for  the  public  service,  but  which  in 
some  of  their  parts  are  morally  indefensible.     Very  few 
of  the  great  acquisitions  of  nations  have  been  made  by 
means   that   were  absolutely  blameless,  and  in  a  great 
empire  which  has  to  deal  with  uncivilised  or  semi-civilised 
populations,  acts  of  violence  are  certain  to  be  not  unfre- 
quent.      Neither  in  our  judgments  of  history  nor  in  our 
judgments  of  contemporaries  is  it  possible  to  apply  the 
full  stringency  of  private  morals  to  the  cases  of  men  act- 
ing in  posts  of  great  responsibility  and  danger  amid  the 
storms  of  revolution,  or  panic,  or  civil  war.     With  the 
vast   interests   confided   to   their  care,   and  the  terrible 
dangers  that   surround   them,   measures  must  often    be 
taken  which  cannot  be  wholly  or  at  least  legally  justified. 
On  the  other  hand,  men  in  such  circumstances  are  only 
too  ready  to  accept  the  principle  of  Machiavelli  and  of 
Napoleon,  and  to  treat  politics  as  if  they  had  absolutely 
no  connection  with  morals. 

Cases  of  this  kind  must  be  considered  separately  and 
with  a  careful  examination  of  the  motives  of  the  actor, 
and  of  the  magnitude  of  the  dangers  he  had  to  encounter. 
Allowances  must  be  made  for  the  moral  atmosphere  in 
which  he  moved,  and  his  career  must  be  considered  as  a 
whole,  and  not  only  in  its  peccant  parts.  In  the  trial  of 
Warren  Hastings,  and  in  the  judgments  which  historians 


THE   COUP  D'ETAT   OF  NAPOLEON  155 

have  passed  on  the  lives  of  the  other  great  adventurers 
who  have  built  up  the  Empire,  questions  of  this  kind 
continually  arise. 

In  our  own  day  also  they  have  been  very  frequent. 
The  Coup  d'etat  of  the  2nd  of  December,  1851,  is  an 
extreme  example.  Louis  Napoleon  had  sworn  to  observe 
and  to  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  French  Eepublic, 
which  had  been  established  in  1848,  and  that  Cpn- 
stitution,  among  other  articles,  pronounced  the  persons 
of  the  representatives  of  the  people  to  be  inviolable ; 
declared  every  act  of  the  President  which  dissolved  the 
Assembly  or  prorogued  it,  or  in  any  way  trammelled  it 
in  the  exercise  of  its  functions,  to  be  high  treason,  and 
guaranteed  the  fullest  liberty  of  writing  and  discussion. 
'  The  oath  which  I  have  just  taken,'  said  the  President, 
addressing  the  Assembly,  '  commands  my  future  conduct. 
My  duty  is  clear ;  I  will  fulfil  it  as  a  man  of  honour.  L 
shall  regard  as  enemies  of  the  country  all  those  who 
endeavour  to  change  by  illegal  means  what  all  France  has 
established.'  In  more  than  one  subsequent  speech  he 
reiterated  the  same  sentiments  and  endeavoured  to  per- 
suade the  country  that  under  no  possible  circumstances 
would  he  break  his  oath  or  violate  his  conscience,  or  over- 
step the  limits  of  his  constitutional  powers. 

What  he  did  is  well  known.  Before  daybreak  on 
December  2,  some  of  the  most  eminent  statesmen  in 
France,  including  eighteen  members  of  the  Chamber,  were, 
by  his  orders,  arrested  in  their  beds  and  sent  to  prison, 
and  many  of  them  afterwards  to  exile.  The  Chamber  was 
occupied  by  soldiers,  and  its  members,  who  assembled  in 
another  place,  were  marched  to  prison.  The  High  Court 
of  Justice  was  dissolved  by  force.  Martial  law  was  pro- 
claimed.    Orders   were  given  that   all  who  resisted  the 


156  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

usurpation  in  the  streets  were  at  once,  and  without  trial, 
to  be  shot.  All  liberty  of  the  press,  all  liberty  of  public 
meeting  or  discussion  was  absolutely  destroyed.  About 
one  hundred  newspapers  were  suppressed  and  great  num- 
bers of  their  editors  transported  to  Cayenne.  Nothing 
was  allowed  to  be  published  without  Government 
authority.  In  order  to  deceive  the  people  as  to  the 
amount  of  support  behind  the  President,  a  *  Consultative 
Commission '  was  announced  and  the  names  were  placarded 
in  Paris.  Fully  half  the  persons  whose  names  were 
placed  on  this  list  refused  to  serve,  but  in  spite  of  their 
protests,  their  names  were  kept  there  in  order  that  they 
might  appear  to  have  approved  of  what  was  done.^  Orders 
were  issued  immediately  after  the  Coup  cVetat  that  every 
public  functionary,  who  did  not  instantly  give  in  writing 
his  adhesion  to  the  new  Government,  should  be  dismissed. 
The  Prefets  were  given  the  right  to  arrest  in  their 
departments  whoever  they  pleased.  By  an  ex  post 
facto  decree,  issued  on  December  8,  the  Executive  were 
enabled  without  trial  to  send  to  Cayenne,  or  to  the  penal 
settlements  in  Africa,  any  persons  who  had  in  any  past 
time  belonged  to  a  *  Secret  Society,'  and  this  order  placed 
all  the  numerous  members  of  political  clubs  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Government.  Parliament,  when  it  was  suffered 
to  reassemble,  was  so  organised  and  shackled  that  every 
vestige  of  free  discussion  for  many  years  disappeared,  and 
a  despotism  of  almost  Asiatic  severity  was  established  in 
France. 

It  may  be  fully  conceded  that  the  tragedy  of  Decem- 
ber 4,  when  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour  some 
3,000  French  soldiers  deliberately  fired  volley  after  volley 

'  See  Tocqueville's   Memoirs  (English  trans.),  ii.   189,  Letter  to   the 
Times. 


TPIE   COUP   D'ETAT   OF   NAPOLEON  157 

without  return  upon  the  unoffending  spectators  on  the 
Boulevards,  broke  into  the  houses  and  killed  multitudes, 
not  only  of  men  but  of  women  and  children,  till  the 
Boulevards,  in  the  words  of  an  English  eye-witness,  were 
'  at  some  points  a  perfect  shambles,'  and  the  blood  lay  in 
pools  round  the  trees  that  fringed  them,  w^as  not  ordered 
by  the  President,  though  it  remained  absolutely  un- 
pmiished  and  uncensured  by  him.  There  is  conflicting 
evidence  on  this  point,  but  it  is  probable  that  some  stray 
shots  had  been  fired  from  the  houses,  and  it  is  certain 
that  a  wild  and  sanguinary  panic  had  fallen  upon  the 
soldiers.  It  is  possible  too,  and  not  improbable,  that  the 
stories  so  generally  believed  in  Paris  that  large  batches  of 
prisoners,  who  had  been  arrested,  were  brought  out  of 
prison  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night  and  deliberately 
shot  by  bodies  of  soldiers,  may  have  been  exaggerated  or 
untrue.  Maupas,  who  was  Prefet  of  Police,  and  who 
must  have  known  the  truth,  positively  denied  it ;  but 
the  question  what  credence  should  be  attached  to  a  man 
of  his  antecedents  who  boasted  that  he  had  been  from 
the  first  a  leading  agent  in  the  whole  conspiracy  may  be 
reasonably  asked.  ^  Evidence  of  these  things,  as  has  been 
truly  said,  could  scarcely  be  obtained,  for  the  press  was 
absolutely  gagged  and  all  possibility  of  investigation  was 
prevented.  For  the  number  of  those  who  were  trans- 
ported or  forcibly  expelled  within  the  few  weeks  after 
December  2,  we  may  perhaps  rely  upon  the  historian  and 
panegyrist  of  the   Empire.     He  computes  them  at  the 

•  See  Maupas,  Mdmoires  sur  le  Second  Empire,  i.  511,  512.  It  is  said 
that,  contrary  to  the  orders  of  St.-Arnaud,  the  soldiers,  instead  of  im- 
mediately shooting  all  persons  in  the  street  who  were  found  with  arms  or 
constructing  or  defending  a  barricade,  made  many  prisoners,  and  it  is  not 
clear  what  became  of  them.  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  however,  altogether 
denies  the  executions  on  the  Champ  de  Mars  (ii.  433). 


158  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

enormous  number  of  26,500.^  After  the  Plebiscite  new 
measures  of  proscription  were  taken,  and,  according  to 
^femile  Ollivier,  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  and  skilful 
eulogists  of  the  Coup  d'etat,  in  the  first  months  of  1852 
there  were  from  15,000  to  20,000  political  prisoners  in 
the  French  prisons.^  It  was  by  such  means  that  Louis 
Napoleon  attained  the  empire  which  had  been  the  dream 
of  his  life. 

Like  many,  however,  of  the  great  crimes  of  history, 
this  was  not  without  its  palliations,  and  a  more  detailed 
investigation  will  show  that  those  palliations  were  not 
inconsiderable.  Napoleon  had  been  elected  to  the  presi- 
dency by  5,434,226  votes  out  of  7,317,344  which  were 
given,  and  with  his  name,  his  antecedents,  and  his  well- 
known  aspirations,  this  overwhelming  majority  clearly 
showed  what  were  the  real  wishes  of  the  people.  His 
power  rested  on  universal  suffrage ;  it  was  independent  of 
the  Chamber.  It  gave  him  the  direction  of  the  army, 
though  he  could  not  command  it  in  person,  and  from  the 
very  beginning  he  assumed  an  independent  and  almost 
regal  position.  In  the  first  review  that  took  place  after 
his  election  he  was  greeted  by  the  soldiers  with  cries 
of  *  Vive  Napoleon  !  Vive  I'Empereur  !  '  It  was  soon 
proved  that  the  Constitution  of  1848  was  exceedingly  un- 
workable. In  the  words  of  Lord  Palmerston :  *  There 
were  two  great  powers,  each  deriving  its  existence  from 
the  same  source,  almost  sure  to  disagree,  but  with  no 
umpire  to  decide  between  them,  and  neither  able  by  any 
legal  means  to  get  rid  of  the  other.'  The  President  could 
not  dissolve  the  Chamber,  but  he  could  impose  upon  it 
any  ministry  he  chose.  He  was  himself  elected  for  only 
four  years,  and  he  could  not  be  re-elected,  while  by  a 

>  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  ii.  438.  '  UEmpire  Liberal,  ii.  526. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  THE   COUP  D'ETAT  159 

most  fatuous  provision  the  powers  of  the  President  and 
the  Chamber  were  to  expire  in  1852  at  the  same  time, 
leaving  France  without  a  government  and  exposed  to  the 
gravest  danger  of  anarchy. 

The  Legislative  Assembly,  which  was  elected  in 
May  1849,  was,  it  is  true,  far  from  being  a  revolu- 
tionary one.  It  contained  a  minority  of  desperate 
Socialists,  it  was  broken  into  many  fractions,  and  like 
most  democratic  French  Chambers  it  showed  much 
weakness  and  inconsistency  ;  but  the  vast  majority  of  its 
members  were  Conservatives  who  had  no  kind  of  sympathy 
with  revolution,  and  its  conduct  towards  the  President,  if 
fairly  judged,  was  on  the  whole  very  moderate.  He  soon 
treated  it  with  contempt,  and  it  was  quite  evident  that 
there  was  no  national  enthusiasm  behind  it.  The  Socialist 
party  was  growing  rapidly  in  the  great  towns ;  in  June 
1849,  there  was  an  abortive  Socialist  insurrection  in  Paris, 
and  a  somewhat  more  formidable  one  at  Lyons.  They 
were  easily  put  down,  but  the  Socialists  captured  a  great 
part  of  the  representation  of  Paris,  and  they  succeeded  in 
producing  a  wild  panic  throughout  the  country.  It  led  to 
several  reactionary  measures,  the  most  important  being  a 
law  which  by  imposing  new  conditions  of  residence  very 
considerably  limited  the  suffrage.  This  law  was  presented 
to  the  Chamber  by  the  Ministers  of  the  President  and 
with  his  assent,  though  he  subsequently  demanded  the  re- 
establishment  of  universal  suffrage,  and  made  a  decree 
doing  this  one  of  the  chief  justifications  of  his  Coup 
d'etat.  The  restrictive  law  was  carried  through  the 
Chamber  on  May  31,  1850,  by  an  immense  majority, 
but  it  was  denounced  with  great  eloquence  by  some 
of  its  leading  members,  and  it  added  seriously  to  the 
unpopularity    of     the    Assembly,    and    greatly    lowered 


160  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

its  authority  in  contending  with  a  President  whose 
authority  rested  on  direct  universal  suffrage.  More 
than  once  he  exercised  his  power  of  dismissing  and 
appointing  ministries  absolutely  irrespective  of  its  votes 
and  wishes,  and  in  each  case  in  order  to  fill  all  posts  of 
power  with  creatures  of  his  own.  The  newspapers 
supporting  him  continually  inveighed  against  the  Cham- 
ber, and  dwelt  upon  the  danger  of  anarchy  to  which 
France  would  be  exposed  in  1852,  and  upon  the  absolute 
necessity  of  '  a  Saviour  of  Society.'  In  repeated  journeys 
through  France,  and  in  more  than  one  military  review, 
the  President  gave  the  occasion  of  demonstrations  in 
which  the  cries  of  '  Vive  I'Empereur  !  '  were  often  heard, 
and  which  were  manifestly  intended  to  strengthen  him  in 
his  conflict  with  the  Chamber. 

The  man  from  whom  he  had  most  to  fear  was  Chan- 
garnier,  who  since  the  close  of  1848  had  been  commander 
of  the  troops  in  Paris,  and  whose  name,  though  far  less 
popular  than  that  of  Napoleon,  had  much  weight  with  the 
army.  He  was  a  man  with  strong  leanings  to  authority, 
and  was  much  courted  by  the  monarchical  parties,  but 
was  for  some  time  in  decided  sympathy  with  Napoleon, 
from  whom,  however,  in  spite  of  large  offers  that  had  been 
made  him,  he  gradually  diverged.  He  issued  peremptory 
orders  to  the  troops  under  his  command,  forbidding  all 
party  cries  at  reviews.  He  declared  in  the  Chamber 
that  these  cries  had  been  *  not  only  encouraged  but  pro- 
voked,' and  when  the  intention  of  the  President  to  pro- 
long his  presidency  became  apparent,  he  assm-ed  Odilon 
Barrot  that  he  was  prepared,  if  ordered  by  the  minister 
and  authorised  by  the  President  of  the  Chamber,  to  antici- 
pate the  Coup  d'Stat  by  seizing  and  imprisoning  Louis 
Napoleon.^      The  President  succeeded  in  removing  him 

'   M4vioires  d'Odilon  Bairot,  iv.  59-61. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  THE  COUP  D'eTAT  161 

from  his  command,  and  in  placing  a  creature  of  his  own 
at  the  head  of  the  Paris  troops ;  but  though  Changarnier 
acquiesced  without  resistance  in  his  dismissal,  he  remained 
an  important  member  of  the  Assembly;  he  openly 
declared  that  his  sword  was  at  its  service,  and  if  an  armed 
conflict  broke  out  it  was  tolerably  certain  that  he  would 
be  its  representative.  The  President  had  an  official  salary 
of  48,000Z. — nearly  five  times  as  much  as  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  The  Chamber  refused  to  increase  it, 
though  they  consented  by  a  very  small  majority,  and  at 
the  request  of  Changarnier,  to  pay  his  debts. 

The  demand  for  a  revision  of  the  Constitution,  making 
it  possible  for  the  President  to  be  re-elected,  was  rising 
rapidly  through  the  country,  and  there  can  be  but  little 
doubt  that  this  was  generally  looked  forward  to  as  the 
only  peaceful  solution,  and  that  it  represented  the  real 
wish  of  the  great  majority  of  the  people.  Petitions  in 
favour  of  it,  bearing  an  enormous  number  of  signatures, 
were  presented  to  the  Chamber,  and  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  Conseils  Generaux  of  which  the  Deputies 
generally  formed  part  voted  for  revision.  The  Presi- 
dent did  not  so  much  petition  for  it  as  demand  it.  In  a 
message  he  sent  to  the  Chamber,  he  declared  that  if  they 
did  not  vote  Eevision,  the  people  would,  in  1852,  solemnly 
manifest  their  wishes.  In  a  speech  at  Dijon  June  1, 1851, 
he  declared  that  France  from  end  to  end  demanded  it ; 
that  he  would  follow  the  wishes  of  the  nation,  and  that 
France  would  not  perish  in  his  hands.  In  the  same 
speech  he  accused  the  Chamber  of  never  seconding  his 
wishes  to  ameliorate  the  lot  of  the  people.  He  at  the 
same  time  lost  no  opportunity  of  showing  that  his  special 
sympathy  and  trust  lay  with  the  army,  and  he  singled 
out   with   marked   favour   the  colonels  of  the  regiments 

M 


162  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

which  had  shown  themselves  at  the  reviews  most  promi- 
nent in  demonstrations  in  his  favour.^  The  meaning  of 
all  this  was  hardly  doubtful.  Changarnier  took  up  the 
gauntlet,  and  at  a  time  when  the  question  of  Eevision 
was  before  the  Chamber,  he  declared  that  no  soldier 
would  ever  be  induced  to  move  against  the  law  and  the 
Assembly,  and  he  called  upon  the  Deputies  to  deliberate 
in  peace. 

The  Eevision  was  voted  in  the  Chamber  by  446  votes 
to  278,  but  a  majority  of  three-fourths  was  required  for  a 
constitutional  change,  and  this  majority  was  not  obtained, 
and  in  the  disintegrated  condition  of  French  parties  it 
seemed  scarcely  likely  to  be  obtained.  The  Chamber  was 
soon  after  prorogued  for  about  two  months,  leaving  the 
situation  unchanged,  and  the  tension  and  panic  were 
extreme.  Out  of  eighty-five  Conseils  Generaux  in  France, 
eighty  passed  votes  in  favour  of  Eevision,  three  abstained, 
two  only  opposed. 

The  President  had  now  fully  resolved  upon  a  coup 
d'Stat,  and  before  the  Chamber  reassembled  a  new 
ministry  was  constituted,  St.-Arnaud  being  at  the  head  of 
the  army,  and  Maupas  at  the  head  of  the  police.  His 
first  step  was  to  summon  the  Chamber  to  repeal  the  law  of 
May  31  which  abolished  universal  suffrage.  The  Chamber, 
after  much  hesitation,  refused,  but  only  by  two  votes. 
The  belief  that  the  question  could  only  be  solved  by 
force  was  becoming  universal,  and  the  bolder  spirits  in  the 
Chamber  clearly  saw  that  if  no  new  measure  was  taken 
they  were  likely  to  be  helpless  before  the  military  party. 
By  a  decree  of  1848  the  President  of  the  Chamber  had  a 
right,  if  necessary,  to  call  for  troops  for  its  protection  in- 
dependently of  the  Minister  of  War,  and  a,  motion  was 

'  Mimoires  d'Odilon  Barrot,  iv.  56,  57. 


ANTECEDENTS   OF  THE   COUP  D'ETAT  163 

now  made  that  he  should  be  able  to  select  a  general  to 
whom  he  might  delegate  this  power.  Such  a  measure, 
dividing  the  military  command  and  enabling  the  Chamber 
to  have  its  own  general  and  its  own  army,  might  have 
proved  very  efficacious,  but  it  would  probably  have  in- 
volved France  in  civil  war,  and  the  President  was  resolved 
that,  if  the  Chamber  voted  it,  the  coup  d'etat  should 
iromediately  take  place.  The  vote  was  taken  on  Novem- 
ber 17,  1851.  St.-Arnaud  as  Minister  of  War  opposed 
the  measure  on  constitutional  grounds,  dilating  on  the 
danger  of  a  divided  military  command,  but  during  the 
discussion  Maupas  and  Magnan  were  in  the  gallery  of  the 
Chamber,  waiting  to  give  orders  to  St.-Arnaud  to  call  out 
the  troops  and  to  surround  and  dissolve  the  Chamber 
if  the  proposition  was  carried. 

It  was,  however,  rejected  by  a  majority  of  108,  and  a 
few  troubled  days  of  conspiracy  and  panic  still  remained 
before  the  blow  was  struck.  The  state  of  the  public 
securities  and  the  testimony  of  the  best  judges  of  all 
parties  showed  the  genuineness  of  the  alarm.  It  was 
not  true,  as  the  President  stated  in  the  proclamation 
issued  when  the  coup  d'etat  was  accomplished,  that 
the  Chamber  had  become  a  mere  nest  of  conspiracies, 
and  there  was  a  strange  audacity  in  his  assertion,  that 
he  made  the  coup  d'etat  for  the  purpose  of  maintain- 
ing the  Republic  against  monarchical  plots;  but  it 
was  quite  true  that  the  conviction  was  general  that 
force  had  become  inevitable ;  that  the  chief  doubt  was 
whether  the  first  blow  would  be  struck  by  Napoleon  or 
Changarnier,  and  that  while  the  evident  desire  of  the 
majority  of  the  people  was  to  re-elect  Napoleon,  there 
was  a  design  among  some  members  of  the  Chamber 
to  seize  him  by  force  and  to   elect   in   his  place   some 

H   2 


164  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

member  of  the  House  of  Orleans.^  On  December  2,  the 
curtain  fell,  and  Napoleon  accompanied  his  coup  d'etat  by 
a  decree  dissolving  the  Chamber,  restoring  by  his  own 
authority  universal  suffrage,  abolishing  the  law  of  May  31 
establishing  a  state  of  siege,  and  calling  on  the  French 
people  to  judge  his  action  by  their  vote. 

It  was  certainly  not  an  appeal  upon  which  great  con- 
fidence could  be  placed.  Immediately  after  the  coup 
d'etat  the  army,  which  was  wholly  on  his  side,  voted 
separately  and  openly  in  order  that  France  might  clearly 
know  that  the  armed  forces  were  with  the  President  and 
might  be  able  to  predict  the  consequences  of  a  verdict 
unfavourable  to  his  pretensions.  When  nearly  three 
weeks  later  the  civilian  Plebiscite  took  place  martial 
law  was  in  force.  Public  meetings  of  every  kind  were 
forbidden.  No  newspaper  hostile  to  the  new  authority 
was  permitted.  No  electioneering  paper  or  placard  could 
be  circulated  which  had  not  been  sanctioned  by  Govern- 
ment officials.  The  terrible  decree  that  all  who  had  ever 
belonged  to  a  secret  society  might  be  sent  to  die  in  the 
fevers  of  Africa  was  interpreted  in  the  widest  sense,  and 
every  political  society  or  organisation  was  included  in  it. 
All  the  functionaries  of  a  highly  centralised  country  were 
turned  into  ardent  electioneering  agents,  and  the  question 
was  so  put  that  the  voters  had  no  alternative  except  for 
or  against  the  President,  a  negative  vote  leaving  the 
country  with  no  government  and  an  almost  certain  pro- 
spect of  anarchy  and  civil  war.     Under  these  circum- 

*  See  Lord  Palmerston's  statements  on  this  subject  in  Ashley's  Life  of 
Palmerston,  ii.  200-211.  Tocqueville,  however,  utterly  denies  that  the 
majority  of  the  Assembly  had  any  sympathy  with  these  views  (Tocqueville's 
Memoirs  (Eng.  trans.),  ii.  177).  Maupas  in  his  Mdmoires  gives  a  very 
detailed  account  of  the  conspiracy  on  the  Bonapartist  side.  It  appears 
that  the  '  homme  de  confiance  '  of  Changarnier  was  in  his  pay. 


RECEPTION   OF  THE   COUP  D'ETAT  166 

stances  7,500,000  votes  were  given  for  the  President  and 
500,000  against  him. 

But  after  all  deductions  have  been  made  there  can  be 
no  real  doubt  that  the  majority  of  Frenchmen  acquiesced 
in  the  new  regime.  The  terror  of  Socialism  was  abroad, 
and  it  brought  with  it  an  ardent  desire  for  strong  govern- 
ment. The  probabilities  of  a  period  of  sanguinary  anarchy 
were  so  great  that  multitudes  were  glad  to  be  secured 
from  it  almost  at  any  cost.  Parliamentarism  was  pro- 
foundly discredited.  The  peasant  proprietary  had  never 
cared  for  it,  and  the  bourgeois  class  among  whom  it  had 
once  been  popular  were  now  thoroughly  scared.  Nothing 
in  the  contemporary  accounts  of  the  period  is  more  strik- 
ing than  the  indifference,  the  almost  amused  cynicism,  or 
the  sense  of  relief  with  which  the  great  mass  of  French- 
men seem  to  have  witnessed  the  destruction  of  their 
constitution  and  the  gross  insults  inflicted  upon  a  Chamber 
which  included  so  many  of  the  most  illustrious  of  their 
countrymen. 

We  can  hardly  have  a  better  authority  on  this  point 
than  Tocqueville.  No  one  felt  more  profoundly  or  more 
bitterly  the  iniquity  of  what  had  been  done ;  but  he  was 
under  no  illusion  about  the  sentiments  of  the  people. 
The  constitution,  he  says,  was  thoroughly  unpopular. 
'  Louis  Napoleon  had  the  merit  or  the  luck  to  discover 
what  few  suspected — the  latent  Bonapartism  of  the 
nation.  .  .  .  The  memory  of  the  Emperor,  vague  and 
undefined,  but  therefore  the  more  imposing,  still  dwelt 
like  an  heroic  legend  in  the  imaginations  of  the  people.* 
All  the  educated,  in  the  opinion  of  Tocqueville,  con- 
demned and  repudiated  the  coup  d'etat.  'Thirty-seven 
years  of  liberty  have  made  a  free  press  and  free  parlia- 
mentary discussion  necessary  to  us.'     But  the  bulk  of  the 


166  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

nation  was  not  with  them.  The  new  Government,  he 
predicted,  '  will  last  nntil  it  is  unpopular  with  the  mass 
of  the  people.  At  present  the  disapprobation  is  confined 
to  the  educated  classes.'  'The  reaction  against  demo- 
cracy and  even  against  liberty  is  irresistible.'  ^ 

There  is  no  doubt  some  exaggeration  on  both  sides  of 
this  statement.  The  appalling  magnitude  of  the  deporta- 
tions and  imprisonments  by  the  new  Government  seems 
to  show  that  the  hatred  went  deeper  than  Tocqueville 
supposed,  and  on  the  other  hand  it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  the  educated  classes  wholly  repudiated  what  had 
been  done  when  we  remember  that  the  French  Funds  at 
once  rose  from  91  to  102,  that  nearly  all  branches  of 
French  commerce  made  a  similar  spring,^  that  some 
twenty  generals  were  actively  engaged  in  the  conspiracy, 
and  that  the  great  body  of  the  priests  were  delighted  at 
its  success.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  property  of 
France  saw  in  the  success  of  the  coup  d'etat  an  escape 
from  a  great  danger,  while  two  powerful  professions, 
the  army  and  the  Church,  were  strongly  in  favour  of 
the  President.  Over  the  army  the  name  of  Napoleon 
exercised  a  maejical  influence,  and  the  expedition  to 
Eome  and  the  probability  that  the  new  government 
would  be  under  clerical  guidance  were,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Church  party,  quite  sufficient  to  justify  what  had 
been  done. 

Nothing,  indeed,  in  this  strange  history  is  more  signi- 
ficant than  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  special  leaders 
and  representatives  of  the  Church  which  teaches  that  '  it 
were  better  for  the  sun  and  moon  to  drop  from  heaven, 
for  the  earth  to  fail,  and  for  all  of  the  many  millions 
upon  it   to   die  of    starvation  in   extremest   agony,    so 

*  Tooqueville's  Memovrs,  ii.  '  Ashley's  Life  of  Palmerston,  ii.  208. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE   COUP  D'ETAT  167 

far  as  temporal  affliction  goes,  than  that  one  soul  .  .  . 
should  commit  one  venial  sin,  should  tell  one  wilful 
untruth.'  ^ 

Three  illustrious  churchmen — Lacordaire,  Eavignan 
and  Dupanloup — to  their  immortal  honour  refused  to 
give  any  approbation  to  the  coup  d'etat,  or  to  express 
any  confidence  in  its  author.  But  the  latest  pane- 
gyrist of  the  Empire  boasts  that  they  were  almost 
alone  in  their  profession.  By  the  advice  of  the  Papal 
Nuncio  and  of  the  leading  French  bishops,  the  clergy 
lost  no  time  in  presenting  their  feHcitations.  Veuillot, 
who  more  than  any  other  man  represented  and  influenced 
the  vast  majority  of  the  French  priesthood,  wrote  on  what 
had  been  done  with  undisguised  and  unqualified  exulta- 
tion and  delight.  Even  Montalembert  rallied  to  the 
Government  on  the  morrow  of  the  coup  d'etat.  He 
described  Louis  Napoleon  as  a  Prince  *  who  had  shown 
a  more  efficacious  and  intelligent  devotion  to  religious 
interests  than  any  of  those  who  had  governed  France 
during  sixty  years  ;'  and  it  was  universally  admitted  that 
the  great  body  of  the  clergy,  with  Archbishop  Sibour  at 
their  head,  were  in  this  critical  moment  ardent  supporters 
of  the  new  government.^  Kinglake,  in  a  page  of  im- 
mortal beauty,  has  described  the  scene  when,  thirty  days 
after  the  coup  d'etat,  Louis  Napoleon  appeared  in  Notre 
Dame  to  receive,  amid  all  the  pomp  that  Catholic  cere- 
monial could  give,  the  solemn  blessing  of  the  Church,  and  to 
listen  to  the  Te  Deum  thanking  the  Almighty  for  what  had 
been  accomplished.  The  time  came,  it  is  true,  when  the 
policy  of  the  priests  was  changed,  for  they  found  that  Louis 
Napoleon  was  more  liberal  and  less  clerical  than  they  im- 
agined ;  but  in  estimating  the  feelings  with  which  French 

'  Newman.  "^  See  OUivier,  L'Empire  Liberal,  ii.  510-512. 


168  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

Liberals  judge  the  Church,  its  attitude  towards  the  perjury 
and  violence  of  December  2  should  never  be  forgotten. 

To  those  who  judge  the  political  ethics  of  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Church  not  from  the  deceptive  pages  of  such 
writers  as  Newman,  but  from  an  examination  of  its  actual 
conduct  in  the  different  periods  of  its  history,  it  will  appear 
in  no  degree  inconsistent.  It  is  but  another  instance  added 
to  many  of  the  manner  in  which  it  regards  all  acts  which 
appear  conducive  to  its  interests.  It  was  the  same  spirit 
that  led  a  Pope  to  offer  public  thanks  for  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew,  and  to  order  Vasari  to  paint  the  murder 
of  Coligny  on  the  walls  of  the  Vatican  among  the  triumphs 
of  the  Church.  No  Christian  sovereign  of  modern 
times  has  left  a  worse  memory  behind  him  than  Ferdi- 
nand II.  of  Naples,  who  received  the  Pope  when  he 
fled  to  Gaeta  in  1848.  He  was  the  sovereign  whose 
government  was  described  by  Gladstone  as  *  a  negation  of 
God.'  He  not  only  destroyed  the  Constitution  he  had 
sworn  to  observe,  but  threw  into  a  loathsome  dungeon 
the  Liberal  ministers  who  had  trusted  him.  But  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Pope  his  services  to  the  Church  far  outweighed 
all  defects,  and  the  monument  erected  to  this  '  most  pious 
prince '  may  be  seen  in  one  of  the  chapels  of  St.  Peter's. 
Every  visitor  to  Paris  may  see  the  fresco  in  the  Madeleine 
in  which  Napoleon  I.  appears  seated  triumphant  on  the 
clouds  and  surrounded  by  an  admiring  priesthood,  the  most 
prominent  and  glorified  figure  in  a  picture  representing  the 
history  of  Christianity,  with  Christ  descending  to  judge 
the  world. 

It  is  indeed  a  most  significant  fact  that  in  Catholic 
countries  the  highest  moral  level  in  public  life  is  now 
rarely  to  be  found  among  those  who  specially  represent 
the  spirit  and  teaching  of  their  Church,  and  much  more 


OPINIONS    ABOUT   THE   COUP   D'ETAT  169 

frequently  among  men  who  are  unconnected  with  it,  and 
often  with  all  dogmatic  theology.  How  seldom  has  the 
distinctively  Catholic  press  seriously  censured  unjust  wars, 
unscrupulous  alliances,  violations  of  constitutional  obliga- 
tions, unprovoked  aggressions,  great  outbursts  of  intoler- 
ance and  fanaticism  !  It  is,  indeed,  not  too  much  to  say 
that  some  of  the  worst  moral  perversions  of  modern  times 
have  been  supported  and  stimulated  by  a  great  body  of 
genuinely  Catholic  opinion  both  in  the  priesthood  and  in 
the  press.  The  anti-Semite  movement,  the  shameful  in- 
difference to  justice  shown  in  France  in  the  Dreyfus  case, 
and  the  countless  frauds,  outrages,  and  oppressions  that 
accompanied  the  domination  of  the  Irish  Land  League 
are  recent  and  conspicuous  examples. 

Among  secular-minded  laymen  the  coup  d'etat  of  Louis 
Napoleon  was,  as  I  have  said,  differently  judged.  Few 
things  in  French  history  are  more  honourable  than  the 
determination  with  which  so  many  men  who  were  the  very 
flower  of  the  French  nation  refused  to  take  the  oath  or 
give  their  adhesion  to  the  new  Government.  Great  states- 
men and  a  few  distinguished  soldiers  with  a  splendid  past 
behind  them  and  with  the  prospect  of  an  illustrious 
career  before  them;  men  of  genius  who  in  their  pro- 
fessorial chairs  had  been  the  centres  of  the  intellectual 
life  of  France;  functionaries  who  had  by  laborious  and 
persevering  industry  climbed  the  steps  of  their  profession 
and  depended  for  their  livelihood  on  its  emoluments,  ac- 
cepted poverty,  exile  and  the  long  eclipse  of  the  most 
honourable  ambitions  rather  than  take  an  oath  which 
seemed  to  justify  the  usurpation.  At  the  same  time, 
some  statesmen  of  unquestionable  honour  did  not  wholly 
L^  and  in  all  its  parts  condemn  it.  Lord  Palmerston  was 
conspicuous  among  them.   Without  expressing  approval  of 


I 


170  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

all  that  had  been  done,  he  always  maintained  that  the 
condition  of  France  was  such  that  a  violent  subversion  of 
an  unworkable  Constitution  and  the  estabHshment  of  a 
strong  government  had  become  absolutely  necessary ;  that 
the  coup  d'etat  saved  France  from  the  gravest  and  most 
imminent  danger  of  anarchy  and  civil  war,  and  that  this 
fact  was  its  justification.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  acts 
of  ferocious  tyranny  which  immediately  followed  it,  his 
opinion  would  have  been  more  largely  shared. 

It  is  probable  that  the  moral  character  of  coups  d'etat 
may  in  the  future  not  unfrequently  come  into  discussion 
in  Europe,  as  it  has  often  done  in  South  America.  As 
the  best  observers  are  more  and  more  perceiving,  parlia- 
mentary government  worked  upon  party  lines  is  by  no 
means  an  easy  thing,  and  it  seldom  attains  perfection  with- 
out long  experience  and  without  qualities  of  mind  and 
character  which  are  very  unequally  distributed  among  the 
nations  of  the  world.  It  requires  a  spirit  of  compromise, 
patience  and  moderation;  the  kind  of  mind  which  can 
distinguish  the  solid,  the  practical  and  the  well  meaning, 
from  the  brilliant,  the  plausible  and  the  ambitious,  which 
cares  more  for  useful  results  and  for  the  conciliation  of 
many  interests  and  opinions  than  for  any  rigid  uniformity 
and  consistency  of  principle ;  which  while  pursuing 
personal  ambitions  and  party  aims  can  subordinate  them 
on  great  occasions  to  public  interests.  It  needs  a  com- 
bination of  independence  and  discipline  which  is  not 
common,  and  where  it  does  not  exist  parliaments  speedily 
degenerate  either  into  an  assemblage  of  puppets  in  the 
hands  of  party  leaders  or  into  disintegrated,  demoralised, 
insubordinate  groups.  Some  of  the  foremost  nations  of 
the  world — nations  distinguished  for  noble  and  brilliant 
intellect ;  for  splendid  heroism ;    for  great  achievements 


GOVERNOR  EYRE  171 

in  peace  and  war,  have  in  this  form  of  government  con- 
spicuously failed.  In  England  it  has  grown  with  our 
growth  and  strengthened  with  our  strength.  We  have 
practised  it  in  many  phases.  Its  traditions  have  taken 
deep  root  and  are  in  full  harmony  with  the  national 
character.  But  in  the  present  century  this  kind  of 
government  has  been  adopted  by  many  nations  which  are 
wholly  unfit  for  it,  and  they  have  usually  adopted  it  in 
the  most  difficult  of  all  forms — that  of  an  uncontrolled 
democracy  resting  upon  universal  suffrage.  It  is  becoming 
very  evident  that  in  many  countries  such  assemblies  are 
wholly  incompetent  to  take  the  foremost  place  in  govern- 
ment, but  they  are  so  fenced  round  by  oaths  and  other 
constitutional  forms  that  nothing  short  of  violence  can 
take  from  them  a  power  which  they  are  never  likely 
voluntarily  to  relinquish.  In  such  countries  democracy 
tends  much  less  naturally  to  the  parliamentary  system 
than  to  some  form  of  dictatorship,  to  some  despotism 
resting  on  and  justified  by  a  plebiscite.  It  is  probable 
that  many  transitions  in  this  direction  will  take  place. 
They  will  seldom  be  carried  out  through  purely  public 
motives  or  without  perjury  and  violence.  But  public 
opinion  will  judge  each  case  on  its  own  merits,  and  where 
it  can  be  shown  that  its  results  are  beneficial  and  that 
large  sections  of  the  people  have  desired  it,  such  an  act 
will  not  be  severely  condemned. 

Cases  of  conflicting  ethical  judgments  of  another  kind 
may  be  easily  cited.  One  of  the  best  known  was  that  of 
Governor  Eyre  at  the  time  of  the  Jamaica  insurrection  of 
1865.  In  this  case  there  was  no  question  of  personal 
interest  or  ambition.  The  Governor  was  a  man  of  stainless 
honour,  who  in  a  moment  of  extreme  difficulty  and  danger 
had   rendered   a   great   service   to   his  country.     By  his 


172  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

prompt  and  courageous  action  a  negro  insurrection  was 
quickly  suppressed,  which,  if  it  had  been  allowed  to 
extend,  raust  have  brought  untold  horrors  upon  Jamaica. 
But  the  martial  law  which  he  had  proclaimed  was 
certainly  continued  longer  than  was  necessary,  it  was 
exercised  with  excessive  severity,  and  those  who  were 
tried  under  it  were  not  merely  men  who  had  been  taken 
in  arms.  One  conspicuous  civilian  agitator,  who  had  con- 
tributed greatly  to  stimulate  the  insurrection,  and  had  been, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  Governor,  its  '  chief  cause  and  origin,' 
but  who,  like  most  men  of  his  kind,  had  merely  incited 
others  without  taking  any  direct  part  himself,  was  arrested 
in  a  part  of  the  island  in  which  martial  law  was  not 
proclaimed,  and  was  tried  and  hanged  by  orders  of  a  mili- 
tary tribunal  in  a  way  which  the  best  legal  authorities 
in  England  pronounced  wholly  unwarranted  by  law.  If 
this  act  had  been  considered  apart  from  the  general  con- 
ditions of  the  island  it  would  have  deserved  severe  punish- 
ment. If  the  services  of  the  Governor  had  been  considered 
apart  from  this  act  they  would  have  deserved  high 
honours  from  the  Crown.  In  Jamaica  the  Governor 
was  fully  supported  by  the  Legislative  Council  and  the 
Assembly,  but  at  home  pubhc  opinion  was  fiercely  divided, 
and  the  fact  that  the  chief  literary  and  scientific  men  in 
^England  took  sides  on  the  question  added  greatly  to  its 
interest.  Carlyle  took  a  leading  part  in  the  defence  of 
Governor  Eyre.  John  Stuart  Mill  was  the  chairman  of 
a  committee  who  regarded  him  as  a  simple  criminal,  and 
who  for  more  than  two  years  pursued  him  with  a  per- 
sistent vindictiveness.  As  might  have  been  expected  the 
one  side  dwelt  solely  on  his  services  and  the  other  side  on 
his  misdeeds.  Governor  Eyre  received  no  reward  for  the 
great  service  he  had  rendered  and  he  was  involved  by  his 


THE  JAMESON   RAID  173 

enemies  in  a  ruinous  legal  expenditure,  which,  however, 
was  subsequently  paid  by  the  Government,  but  those  who 
desired  to  bring  him  to  trial  for  murder  were  baffled,  for 
the  Old  Bailey  Grand  Jury  threw  out  the  bill.  Public 
opinion,  I  think,  on  the  whole,  approved  of  what  they  had 
done.  Most  moderate  men  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  Governor  Eyre  was  a  brave  and  honourable  man 
who  had  rendered  great  services  to  the  State  and  had  saved 
countless  lives,  but  who,  through  no  unworthy  motive  and 
in  a  time  of  extreme  danger  and  panic,  had  committed  a 
serious  mistake  which  had  been  very  amply  expiated. 

The  more  recent  events  connected  with  the  Jameson 
raid  into  the  Transvaal  may  also  be  cited.  Of  the  raid 
itself  there  is  little  to  be  said.  It  was,  in  truth,  one  of 
the  most  discreditable  as  well  as  mischievous  events 
in  recent  colonial  history,  and  its  character  was  entirely 
unrelieved  by  any  gleam  either  of  heroism  or  of  skill. 
Those  who  took  a  direct  part  in  it  were  duly  tried  and 
duly  punished.  A  section  of  English  society  adopted  on 
this  question  a  disgraceful  attitude,  but  it  must  at  least 
be  said  in  palliation  that  they  had  been  grossly  deceived, 
one  of  the  chief  and  usually  most  trustworthy  organs  of 
opinion  having  been  made  use  of  as  an  organ  of  the 
conspirators. 

A  more  difficult  question  arose  in  the  case  of  the 
statesman  who  had  prepared  and  organised  the  expedition 
against  the  Transvaal.  It  is  certain  that  the  actual  raid 
had  taken  place  without  his  knowledge  or  consent,  though 
when  it  was  brought  to  his  knowledge  he  abstained  from 
taking  any  step  to  stop  it.  It  may  be  conceded  also  that 
there  were  real  grievances  to  be  complained  of.  By  a 
strange  irony  of  fate  some  of  the  largest  gold  mines  of  the 
world  had  fallen  to  the  possession  of  perhaps  the  only 


174  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

people  who  did  not  desire  them ;  of  a  race  of  hunters  and 
farmers  intensely  hostile  to  modern  ideas,  who  had  twice 
abandoned  their  homes  and  made  long  journeys  into 
distant  lands  in  search  of  solitude  and  space  and  of  a 
home  where  they  could  live  their  primitive,  pastoral  lives, 
undisturbed  by  any  foreign  element.  These  men  now 
found  their  country  the  centre  of  a  vast  stream  of  foreign 
immigration,  and  of  that  most  undesirable  kind  of  immi- 
gration which  gold  mines  invariably  promote.  Their  laws 
were  very  backward,  but  the  part  which  was  most  oppres- 
sive was  that  connected  with  the  gold-mining  industry 
which  was  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  immigrants, 
and  it  was  this  which  made  it  a  main  object  to  overthrow 
their  government.  The  trail  of  finance  runs  over  the 
whole  story,  but  it  may  be  acknowledged  that,  although 
Mr.  Khodes  had  made  an  enormous  fortune  by  mining 
speculations,  and  although  he  was  largely  interested  as  a 
financier  in  overturning  the  system  of  government  at 
Johannesburg,  he  was  not  a  man  likely  to  be  actuated  by 
mere  love  of  money,  and  that  political  ambition  closely 
connected  with  the  opening  and  the  civilisation  of  Africa 
largely  actuated  him.  Whether  the  motives  of  his  co- 
conspirators were  of  the  same  kind  may  be  open  to 
question.  What,  however,  he  did  has  been  very  clearly 
established.  When  holding  the  highly  confidential  posi- 
tion of  Prime  Minister  of  the  Cape  Colony,  and  being  at 
the  same  time  a  Privy  Councillor  of  the  Queen,  he 
engaged  in  a  conspiracy  for  the  overthrow  of  the  govern- 
ment of  a  neighbouring  and  friendly  State.  In  order  to 
carry  out  this  design,  he  deceived  the  High  Comixdssioner 
whose  Prime  Minister  he  was.  He  deceived  his  own 
colleagues  in  the  Ministry.  He  collected  under  false 
pretences  a  force  which  was  intended  to  co-operate  with 


THE   JAMESON  RAID  175 

an  insurrection  in  Johannesburg.  Being  a  Director  of 
the  Chartered  Company  he  made  use  of  that  position 
without  the  knowledge  of  his  colleagues  to  further  the 
conspiracy.  He  took  an  active  and  secret  part  in  smuggling 
great  quantities  of  arms  into  the  Transvaal,  which  were 
intended  to  be  used  in  the  rebellion,  and  at  a  time  when 
his  organs  in  the  press  were  representing  Johannesburg 
as  seething  with  spontaneous  indignation  against  an 
oppressive  government,  he,  with  another  millionaire,  was 
secretly  expending  many  thousands  of  pounds  in  that  town 
in  stimulating  and  subsidising  the  rising.  He  was  also 
directly  connected  with  the  shabbiest  incident  in  the  whole 
affair,  the  concoction  of  a  letter  from  the  Johannesburg 
conspirators  absurdly  representing  English  women  and 
children  at  Johannesburg  as  in  danger  of  being  shot 
down  by  the  Boers,  and  urging  the  British  to  come  at 
once  to  save  them.  It  was  a  letter  drawn  up  with  the 
sanction  of  Mr.  Ehodes  many  weeks  before  the  raid,  and 
before  any  disturbance  had  arisen,  and  kept  in  reserve  to 
be  dated  and  used  in  the  last  moment  for  the  purpose  of 
inducing  the  young  soldiers  in  South  Africa  to  join  in  the 
raid,  and  of  subsequently  justifying  their  conduct  before 
the  War  Office,  and  also  for  the  purpose  of  being  pub- 
lished in  the  English  Press  at  the  same  time  as  the  first 
news  of  the  raid  in  order  to  work  upon  English  public 
opinion  and  persuade  the  English  people  that  the  raid, 
though  technically  wrong,  was  morally  justifiable.^ 

Mr.  Khodes  is  a  man  of  great  genius  and  influence, 
and  in  the  past  he  has  rendered  great  services  to  the 
Empire.  At  the  same  time  no  reasonable  judge  can 
question  that  in  these  transactions  he  was  more  blamable 
than  those  who  were  actually  punished  by  the  law  for 

'  Second  Report  of  the   Select  Committee   on    British    South  Africa 
(July  1897). 


176  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

taking   part  in  the  raid — far  more  blamable  than  those 
young  officers  who   were,   in   truth,   the   most   severely 
punished,  and  who  had  been  induced  to  take  part  in  it 
under  a  false  representation  of  the  wishes  of  the  Govern- 
ment at  home,  and  a  grossly  false  representation  of  the 
state   of   things   at   Johannesburg.     The   failure   of   the 
raid,  and  his  undoubted  complicity  with  its  design,  obliged 
Mr.  Khodes  to  resign  the  post  of  Prime  Minister  and  his 
directorship  of  the  Chartered  Company,  and,  for  a  time  at 
least,   eclipsed  his  influence  in  Africa;  but  the  question 
confronted  the  Ministers  whether  these  resignations  alone 
constituted  a  sufficient  punishment  for  what  he  had  done. 
The  question  was,  indeed,  one  of  great  difficulty.    The 
Government,  in  my  opinion,  were  right  in  not  attempting 
a  prosecution  which,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  actual 
raid  had  certainly  been  undertaken  without  the  knowledge 
of  Mr.  Bhodes,  and  that  the  evidence  against  him  was 
chiefly  drawn  from  his  own  voluntary  admissions  before 
the  committee  of  inquiry,  would  inevitably  have  proved 
abortive.     They  were,  perhaps,  right  in  not  taking  from 
him  the  dignity  of   Privy  Councillor,    which   had   been 
bestowed  on  him  as  a  reward  for  great  services  in  the 
past,  and  which  had  never  in  the  present  reign  been  taken 
from  anyone  on  whom  it  had  been  bestowed.     They  were 
right  also,  I   believe,   in   urging  that   after  a  long  and 
elaborate  inquiry  into  the  circumstances  of  the  raid,  and 
after  a  report  in  which  Mr.  Ehodes'  conduct  had  been 
fully  examined   and  severely  censured,  it  was  most  im- 
portant  for  the   peace  and  good  government  of   South 
Africa  that  the   matter   should   as   soon   as   possible  be 
allowed  to  drop,  and  the  raid  and  the  party  animosities  it 
had  aroused  to  subside.     But  what  can  be  thought  of  the 
language  of  a  Minister  who  volunteered   to   assure  the 


IMPORTANCE   OF  MORAL   PRESTIGE  177 

House  of  Commons  that  in  all  the  transactions  I  have 
described,  Mr.  Ehodes,  though  he  had  made  '  a  gigantic 
mistake,'  a  mistake  perhaps  as  great  as  a  statesman  could 
make,  had  done  nothing  affecting  his  personal  honour  ?  ^ 

The  foregoing  examples  will  serve  to  illustrate  the 
kind  of  dijficulty  which  every  statesman  has  to  encounter 
in  dealing  with  political  misdeeds,  and  the  impossibility  of 
treating  them  by  the  clearly  defined  lines  and  standards 
that  are  applicable  to  the  morals  of  a  private  life.  What- 
ever conclusions  men  may  arrive  at  in  the  seclusion  of 
their  studies,  when  they  take  part  in  active  political  life 
they  will  find  it  necessary  to  make  large  allowances  for 
motives,  tendencies,  past  services,  pressing  dangers,  over- 
whelming expediencies,  opposing  interests.  Every  states- 
man who  is  worthy  of  the  name  has  a  strong  predisposition 
to  support  the  public  servants  who  are  under  him  when 
he  knows  that  they  have  acted  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
benefit  the  Empire.  This  is,  indeed,  a  characteristic  of 
all  really  great  statesmen,  and  it  gives  a  confidence  and 
energy  to  the  public  service  which  in  times  of  difficulty 
and  danger  is  of  supreme  importance.  In  such  times  a 
mistaken  decision  is  usually  a  less  evil  than  timid,  vacillat- 
ing, or  procrastinated  action,  and  a  wise  minister  will  go 
far  to  defend  his  subordinates  if  they  have  acted  promptly 
and  with  substantial  justice  in  the  way  they  believed  to 
be  best,  even  though  they  may  have  made  considerable 
mistakes,  and  though  the  results  of  their  action  may  have 
proved  unfortunate. 

But  of  all  forms  of  prestige,  moral  prestige  is  the  most 
raluable,  and  no  statesman  should  forget  that  one  of  the 

ief  elements  of  British  power  is  the  moral  weight  that 

behind  it.     It  is  the  conviction  that  British  policy  is 

'  Parliamentary  Debates,  July  26,  1897,  1169,  1170. 

N 


178  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

essentially  honourable  and  straightforward,  that  the  word 
and  honour  of  its  statesmen  and  diplomatists  may  be 
implicitly  trusted,  and  that  intrigues  and  deceptions  are 
wholly  alien  to  their  nature.  The  statesman  must  steer 
his  way  between  rival  fanaticisms — the  fanaticism  of  those 
who  pardon  everything  if  it  is  crowned  by  success,  and 
conduces  to  the  greatness  of  the  Empire,  and  who  act  as 
if  weak  Powers  and  savage  nations  had  no  moral  rights  ; 
and  the  fanaticism  of  those  who  always  seem  to  have  a 
leaning  against  their  own  country,  and  who  imagine  that 
in  times  of  war,  anarchy,  or  rebellion,  and  in  dealings  with 
savage  or  half-savage  military  populations,  it  is  possible 
to  act  with  the  same  respect  for  the  technicalities  of  law, 
and  the  same  invariably  high  standard  of  moral  scrupu- 
lousness, as  in  a  peaceful  age  and  a  highly  civilised 
country.  In  the  affairs  of  private  life  the  distinction  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  is  usually  very  clear,  but  it  is  not 
so  in  public  affairs.  Even  the  moral  aspects  of  political 
acts  can  seldom  be  rightly  estimated  without  the  exercise 
of  a  large,  judicial,  and  comprehensive  judgment,  and  the 
spirit  which  should  actuate  a  statesman  should  be  rather 
that  of  a  high-minded  and  honourable  man  of  the  w^orld 
than  that  of  a  theologian,  or  a  lawyer,  or  an  abstract 
moralist. 

In  some  respects  the  standard  of  political  morality  has 
undoubtedly  risen  in  modern  times ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  in  international  politics  this  is  the  case.  A 
true  history  of  the  wars  of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  may  well  lead  us  to  doubt  it,  and  recent  dis- 
closures have  shown  us  that  in  the  most  terrible  of  them — 
the  Franco-German  War  of  1870 — the  blame  must  be 
much  more  equally  divided  than  we  had  been  accustomed 
to  believe.     Very  few  massacres  in   history  have  been 


LOW   STANDARD  OF  INTERNATIONAL  POLICY      179 

more  gigantic  or  more  clearly  traced  to  the  action  of  a 
government  than  those  perpetrated  by  Turkish  soldiers  in 
our  generation,  and  few  signs  of  the  low  level  of  public 
feeling  in  Christendom  are  more  impressive  than  the 
general  indifference  with  which  these  massacres  were  con- 
templated in  most  countries.  It  was  made  evident  that 
a  Power  which  retains  its  military  strength,  and  which 
is  therefore  sought  as  an  ally  and  feared  as  an  enemy, 
may  do  things  with  impunity,  and  even  with  very  little 
censure,  which  in  the  case  of  a  weak  nation  would 
produce  a  swift  retribution.  Among  the  minor  episodes 
of  nineteenth-century  history  the  historian  will  not  forget 
how  soon  after  the  savage  Armenian  massacres,  the 
sovereign  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  civilised  of 
Christian  nations  hastened  to  Constantinople  to  clasp  the 
hand  which  was  so  deeply  dyed  with  Christian  blood,  and 
then,  having,  as  he  thought,  sufficiently  strengthened  his 
popularity  and  influence  in  that  quarter,  proceeded  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  where,  amid  scenes  that  are  consecrated 
by  the  most  sacred  of  all  memories,  and  most  fitted  to 
humble  the  pride  of  power  and  dispel  the  dreams  of 
ambition,  he  proclaimed  himself  with  melodramatic  piety 
the  champion  and  the  patron  of  the  Christian  faith  ! 
How  many  instances  may  be  culled  from  very  modern 
history  of  the  deliberate  falsehood  of  statesmen;  of 
distinct  treaty  engagements  and  obligations  simply  set 
aside  because  they  were  inconvenient  to  one  Power,  and 
could  be  repudiated  with  impunity;  of  weak  nations 
annexed  or  plundered  without  a  semblance  of  real  pro- 
vocation !  The  safety  of  the  weak  in  the  presence  of  the 
strong  is  the  best  test  of  international  morality.  Can  it 
be  said  that  if  measured  by  this  test  the  public  morality 
of  our  time  ranks  very  high  ?     No  one  can  fail  to  notice 

N   2 


180  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

with  what  levity  the  causes  of  war  with  barbarous  or 
semi-civiHsed  nations  are  scrutinised  if  only  those  wars 
are  crowned  with  success;  how  strongly  the  present 
commercial  policy  of  Europe  is  stimulating  the  passion 
for  aggression ;  how  warmly  that  policy  is  in  all  great 
nations  supported  by  pubhc  opinion  and  by  the  Press. 

The  questions  of  morality  arising  out  of  these  things 
are  many  and  complicated,  and  they  cannot  be  disposed 
of  by  short  and  simple  formulae.  How  far  is  a  statesman, 
who  sees,  or  thinks  he  sees,  some  crushing  danger  from  an 
aggressive  foreign  Power  impending  over  his  country, 
justified  in  anticipating  that  danger,  and  at  a  convenient 
moment  and  without  any  immediate  provocation  forcing 
on  a  war  ?  How  far  is  it  his  right  or  his  duty  to  sacrifice 
the  lives  of  his  people  through  humanitarian  motives,  for 
the  redress  of  some  flagrant  wrong  with  which  he  is  under 
no  treaty  obligation  to  interfere  ?  How  far,  if  several 
Powers  agree  to  guarantee  the  integrity  of  a  small  Power, 
is  one  Power  bound  at  great  risk  to  interfere  in  isolation 
if  its  co-partners  refuse  to  do  so  or  are  even  accomplices 
in  a  policy  of  plunder  ?  How  far,  if  the  aggression  of 
other  powers  places  his  nation  at  a  commercial  or  other 
disadvantage  in  the  competition  of  nations,  may  a  states- 
man take  measures  which,  under  other  circumstances, 
would  be  plainly  unjustifiable,  to  guard  against  such  dis- 
advantage? With  what  degrees  of  punctiliousness,  at 
what  cost  of  treasure  and  of  life,  ought  a  nation  to  resent 
insults  directed  against  its  dignity,  its  subjects  and  its 
flag  ?  What  is  the  meaning  and  what  are  the  limits  of 
national  egotism  and  national  unselfishness  ?  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  Comity  of  Nations,  and  even  apart 
from  treaty  obligations  no  great  nation  can  pursue  a 
policy   of  complete    isolation    disregarding   crimes    and 


ALLEGED  JUSTIFICAT^ION   OF   CONQUEST  181 

aggressions  beyond  its  border.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
primary  duty  of  every  statesman  is  to  his  own  country. 
His  task  is  to  secure  for  many  millions  of  the  human  race 
the  highest  possible  amount  of  peace  and  prosperity,  and  a 
selfishness  is  at  least  not  a  narrow  one  which,  while  abstain- 
ing from  injuring  others,  restricts  itself  to  promoting  the 
happiness  of  a  vast  section  of  the  human  race.  Sacrifices 
jvand  dangers  which  a  good  man  would  think  it  his  clear 
duty  to  accept  if  they  fell  on  himself  alone,  wear  another 
aspect  if  he  is  acting  as  trustee  for  a  great  nation  and 
for  the  interests  of  generations  who  are  yet  unborn. 
^Nothing  is  more  calamitous  than  the  divorce  of  politics 
:om  morals,  but  in  practical  politics  public  and  private 
lorals  will  never  absolutely  correspond.  The  public 
opinion  of  the  nation  will  inevitably  inspire  and  control 
its  statesmen.  It  creates  in  all  countries  an  ethical  code 
which  with  greater  or  less  perfection  marks  out  for  them 
the  path  of  duty,  and  though  a  great  statesman  may  do 
something  to  raise  its  level,  he  can  never  wholly  escape 
its  influence.  In  different  nations  it  is  higher  or  lower — 
in  truthfulness  and  sincerity  of  diplomacy  the  variations 
are  very  great — but  it  w^ll  never  be  the  exact  code  on 
which  men  act  in  private  life.  It  is  certainly  widely 
different  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

There  is  one  belief,  half  unconscious,  half  avowed, 
which  in  our  generation  is  passing  widely  over  the  world 
and  is  practically  accepted  in  a  very  large  measure  by  the 
English-speaking  nations.  It  is  that  to  reclaim  savage 
tribes  to  civilisation,  and  to  place  the  outlying  dominions 
of  civilised  countries  which  are  anarchical  or  grossly  mis- 
governed in  the  hands  of  rulers  who  govern  wisely  and 
uprightly,  is  a  sufficient  justification  for  aggression  and 
conquest.     Many  who,  as  a  general  rule,  would  severely 


182  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

censure  an  unjust  and  unprovoked  war,  carried  on  for  the 
purpose  of  annexation  by  a  strong  Power  against  a  weak 
one,  will  excuse  or  scarcely  condemn  such  a  war  if  it  is 
directed  against  a  country  which  has  shown  itself  in- 
capable of  good  government.  To  place  the  world  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  can  best  govern  it  is  looked  upon  as  a 
supreme  end.  Wars  are  not  really  undertaken  for  this 
end.  The  philanthropy  of  nations  when  it  takes  the  form 
of  war  and  conquest  is  seldom  or  never  unmixed  with 
selfishness,  though  strong  gusts  of  humanitarian  enthu- 
siasm often  give  an  impulse,  a  pretext,  or  a  support  to  the 
calculated  actions  of  statesmen.  But  when  wars,  however 
selfish  and  unprovoked,  contribute  to  enlarge  the  bound- 
aries of  civilisation,  to  stimulate  real  progress,  to  put  an 
end  to  savage  customs,  to  oppression  or  to  anarchy,  they 
are  now  very  indulgently  judged  even  in  the  many  cases 
in  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  conquered  Power  do  not 
desire  the  change  and  resist  it  strenuously  in  the  field. 

In  domestic  as  in  foreign  politics  the  maintenance  of 
a  high  moral  standard  in  statesmanship  is  impossible 
unless  the  public  opinion  of  the  country  is  in  harmony 
with  it.  Moral  declension  in  a  nation  is  very  swiftly 
followed  by  a  corresponding  decadence  among  its  public 
men,  and  it  will  indeed  be  generally  found  that  the 
standard  of  public  men  is  apt  to  be  somewhat  lower  than 
that  of  the  better  section  of  the  public  outside.  They  are 
exposed  to  very  special  temptations,  some  of  which  I  have 
already  indicated. 

The  constant  habit  of  regarding  questions  with  a  view 
to  party  advantage,  to  proximate  issues,  to  immediate 
popularity,  which  is  inseparable  from  parliamentarj^ 
government,  can  hardly  fail  to  give  some  ply  to  the  most 
honest  intellect.     Most  questions  have  to  be  treated  more 


MORAL   STANDARD   IN  POLITICS  183 

or  less  in  the  way  of  compromise ;  and  alliances  and 
coalitions  not  very  conducive  to  a  severe  standard  of 
political  morals  are  frequent.  In  England  the  leading 
men  of  the  opposing  parties  have  happily  usually  been 
able  to  respect  one  another.  The  same  standard  of  honour 
will  be  found  on  both  sides  of  the  House,  but  every  par- 
liament contains  its  notorious  agitators,  intriguers  and 
self-seekers,  men  who  have  been  connected  with  acts 
which  may  or  may  not  have  been  brought  within  the  reach 
of  the  criminal  law,  but  have  at  least  been  sufficient  to 
.stamp  their  character  in  the  eyes  of  honest  men.  Such 
^men  cannot  be  neglected  in  party  combinations.  Poli- 
tical leaders  must  co-operate  with  them  in  the  daily 
intercourse  and  business  of  parliamentary  life — must 
sometimes  ask  them  favours — must  treat  them  with 
deference  and  respect.  Men  who  on  some  subjects  and 
at  some  times  have  acted  with  glaring  profligacy,  on  others 
act  with  judgment,  moderation  and  even  patriotism,  and 
become  useful  supporters  or  formidable  opponents.  Com- 
binations are  in  this  way  formed  which  are  in  no  degree 
wrong,  but  which  tend  to  dull  the  edge  of  moral  perception 
and  imperceptibly  to  lower  the  standard  of  moral  judg- 
ment. In  the  swift  changes  of  the  party  kaleidoscope, 
the  bygone  is  soon  forgotten.  The  enemy  of  yesterday  is 
the  ally  of  to-day ;  the  services  of  the  present  soon  obscure 
the  misdeeds  of  the  past,  and  men  insensibly  grow  very 
tolerant  not  only  of  diversities  of  opinion,  but  also  of  gross 
aberrations  of  conduct.  The  constant  watchfulness  of 
external  opinion  is  very  necessary  to  keep  up  a  high 
standard  of  political  morality. 

Public  opinion,  it  is  true,  is  by  no  means  impeccable. 
The  tendency  to  believe  that  crimes  cease  to  be  crimes 
when  they  have  a  poHtical  object,  and  that  a  popular  vote 


184  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

can  absolve  the  worst  crimes,  is  only  too  common ;  there 
are  few  political  misdeeds  which  wealth,  rank,  genius  or 
success  will  not  induce  large  sections  of  English  society 
to  pardon,  and  nations  even  in  their  best  moments 
will  not  judge  acts  which  are  greatly  for  their  own  ad- 
vantage with  the  severity  of  judgment  that  they  would 
apply  to  similar  acts  of  other  nations.  But  when  all  this 
is  admitted,  it  still  remains  true  that  there  is  a  large  body 
of  public  opinion  in  England  which  carries  into  all  politics 
a  sound  moral  sense  and  which  places  a  just  and  righteous 
pohcy  higher  than  any  mere  party  interest.  It  is  on  the 
power  and  pressure  of  this  opinion  that  the  high  character 
of  English  government  must  ultimately  depend. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT   AND   THEOLOGY  185 


CHAPTEE  XI 

The  necessities  for  moral  compromise  I  have  traced  in 
the  army,  in  the  law  and  in  the  fields  of  politics  may  be 
fomid  in  another  form  not  less  conspicuously  in  the 
^Church.  The  members,  and  still  more  the  ministers,  of 
an  ancient  Church  bound  to  formularies  and  creeds  that 
were  drawn  up  in  long  bygone  centuries,  are  continually 
met  by  the  difficulties  of  reconciling  these  forms  with 
the  changed  conditions  of  human  knowledge,  and  there 
are  periods  when  the  pressure  of  these  difficulties  is  felt 
with  more  than  common  force.  Such,  for  example,  were 
the  periods  of  the  Eenaissance  and  the  [Reformation, 
I  when  changes  in  the  intellectual  condition  of  Europe 
[produced  a  widespread  conviction  of  the  vast  amount  of 
imposture  and  delusion  which  had  received  the  sanction 
)f  a  Church  that  claimed  to  be  infallible,  the  result  being 
in  some  countries  a  silent  evanescence  of  all  religious 
belief  among  the  educated  class,  even  including  a  large 
number  of  the  leaders  of  the  Church,  and  in  other 
I  countries  a  great  outburst  of  religious  zeal  aiming  at  the 
restoration  of  Christianity  to  its  primitive  form  and  a 
repudiation  of  the  accretions  of  superstition  that  had 
fathered  around  it.  The  Copernican  theory  proving  that 
)ur  world  is  not,  as  was  long  believed,  the  centre  of  the 
liverse,  but  a  single  planet  moving  with  many  others 
round  a  central  sun,  and  the  discovery  by  the  instru- 


186  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

mentality  of  the  telescope  of  the  infinitesimally  small 
place  which  our  globe  occupies  in  the  universe,  altered 
men's  measure  of  probability  and  affected  widely,  though 
indirectly,  their  theological  beliefs. 

A  similar  change  was  gradually  produced  by  the 
Newtonian  discovery  that  the  whole  system  of  the 
universe  was  pervaded  by  one  great  law,  and  by  the 
steady  growth  of  scientific  knowledge,  proving  that  vast 
numbers  of  phenomena  which  were  once  attributed  to 
isolated  and  capricious  acts  of  spiritual  intervention  were 
regulated  by  invariable,  inexorable,  all-pervasive  law. 
Many  of  the  formularies  by  which  we  still  express  our 
religious  beliefs  date  from  periods  when  comets  and 
eclipses  were  believed  to  have  been  sent  to  portend 
calamity  ;  when  every  great  meteorological  change  was 
attributed  to  some  isolated  spiritual  agency ;  when  witch- 
craft and  diabolical  possession,  supernatural  diseases  and 
supernatural  cures  were  deemed  indubitable  facts :  and 
when  accounts  of  contemporary  miracles.  Divine  or 
Satanic,  carried  with  them  no  sense  of  strangeness  or 
improbability.  It  is  scarcely  surprising  that  these  for- 
mularies sometimes  seem  incongruous  with  an  age  when 
the  scientific  spirit  has  introduced  very  different  concep- 
tions of  the  government  of  the  universe,  and  when  the 
miraculous,  if  it  is  not  absolutely  discredited,  is,  at  least 
in  the  eyes  of  most  educated  men,  relegated  to  a  dis- 
tant past. 

The  present  century  has  seen  some  powerful  reactions 
towards  older  religious  beliefs,  but  it  has  also  been  to  an 
unusual  extent  fertile  in  the  kind  of  changes  that  most 
deeply  affect  them.  Not  many  years  have  passed  since 
the  whole  drama  of  the  world's  history  was  believed 
to  have  been  comprised  in  the  framework  of   'Paradise 


DISPLACEMENTS   OF  OLD  BELIEFS  187 

Lost '  and  *  Paradise  Regained. '  Man  appeared  in  the 
universe  a  faultless  being  in  a  faultless  world,  but  he 
soon  fell  from  his  first  estate,  and  his  fall  entailed  world- 
wide consequences.  It  introduced  into  our  globe  sin, 
death,  suffering,  disease,  imperfection  and  decay ;  all  the 
mischievous  and  ferocious  instincts  and  tendencies  of 
man  and  beast ;  all  the  multitudinous  forms  of  struggle, 
terror,  anxiety  and  grief ;  all  that  makes  life  bitter  to  any 
living  being,  and  even,  as  the  Fathers  were  accustomed 
to  say,  the  briars  and  weeds  and  sterility  of  the  earth. 
Paradise  Eegained  was  believed  to  be  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  Paradise  Lost.  The  one  was  the  explanation 
of  the  other.  The  one  introduced  the  disease,  the  other 
provided  the  remedy. 

It  is  idle  to  deny  that  the  main  outlines  of  this  picture 
have  been  wholly  changed.  First  came  the  discovery 
that  the  existence  of  our  globe  stretches  far  beyond  the 
period  once  assigned  to  the  Creation,  and  that  for  count- 
less ages  before  the  time  when  Adam  was  believed  to 
have  lost  Paradise,  death  had  been  its  most  famihar  fact 
and  its  inexorable  law,  that  the  animals  who  inhabited 
it  preyed  upon  and  devoured  each  other  as  at  present, 
their  claws  and  teeth  being  specially  adapted  for  that 
purpose.  Even  their  half -digested  remains  have  been 
preserved  in  fossil. 

*  Death,'  wrote  a  Pagan  philosopher,  in  sharp  contrast 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  'is  a  law  and  not  a 
punishment,'  and  geology  has  fully  justified  his  assertion. 

Then  came  decisive  evidence  showing  that  for  many 
thousands  of  years  before  his  supposed  origin  man  had 
lived  and  died  upon  our  globe — a  being,  as  far  as  can  be 
judged  from  the  remains  that  have  been  preserved,  not 
superior  but  greatly  inferior  to  ourselves,  whose  almost 


188  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

only  art  was  the  manufacture  of  rude  instruments  for 
killing,  who  appears  in  structure  and  in  life  to  have 
approximated  closely  to  the  lowest  existing  forms  of 
savage  life. 

Then  came  the  Darwinian  theory  maintaining  that 
the  whole  history  of  the  living  world  is  a  history  of  slow 
and  continuous  evolution,  chiefly  hy  means  of  incessant 
strife,  from  lower  to  higher  forms  ;  that  man  himself  had 
in  this  way  gradually  emerged  from  the  humblest  forms 
of  the  animal  world ;  that  most  of  the  moral  deflections 
which  were  attributed  to  the  apple  in  Eden  are  the  re- 
mains and  traditions  of  the  earlier  and  lower  stages  of 
his  existence.  The  theory  of  continuous  ascent  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  stage  took  the  place  of  the  theory  of 
the  Fall  as  the  explanation  of  human  history.  It  is  a 
doctrine  which  is  certainly  not  without  hope  for  the 
human  race.  It  gives  no  explanation  of  the  ultimate 
origin  of  things,  and  it  is  in  no  degree  inconsistent  with 
the  belief  either  in  a  Divine  and  Creative  origin  or  in  a 
settled  and  Providential  plan.  But  it  is  as  far  as  possible 
removed  from  the  conception  of  human  history  and 
human  nature  which  Christendom  during  eighteen  cen- 
turies accepted  as  fundamental  truth. 

With  these  things  have  come  influences  of  another 
kind.  Comparative  Mythology  has  accumulated  a  vast 
amount  of  evidence,  showing  how  myths  and  miracles 
are  the  natural  product  of  certain  stages  of  human  his- 
tory, of  certain  primitive  misconceptions  of  the  course 
of  nature ;  how  legends  essentially  of  the  same  kind, 
though  with  some  varieties  of  detail,  have  sprung  up  in 
many  different  quarters,  and  how  they  have  migrated 
and  interacted  on  each  other.  Biblical  criticism  has  at 
the  same  time   decomposed   and    analysed   the  Jewish 


DISPLACEMENTS   OF   OLD  BELIEFS  189 

writings,  assigning  to  them  dates  and  degrees  of  authority 
very  different  from  those  recognised  by  the  Church.  It 
has  certainly  not  impaired  their  significance  as  records  of 
successive  developments  of  religious  and  moral  progress, 
nor  has  it  diminished  their  value  as  expressions  of  the 
loftiest  and  most  enduring  religious  sentiments  of  man- 
kind ;  but  in  the  eyes  of  a  great  section  of  the  educated 
v^orld  it  has  deprived  them  of  the  authoritative  and 
infallible  character  that  was  once  attributed  to  them. 
At  the  same  time  historical  criticism  has  brought  with 
it  severer  standards  of  proof,  more  efficient  means  of 
distinguishing  the  historical  from  the  fabulous.  It  has 
traced  the  phases  and  variations  of  religions,  and  the 
influences  that  governed  them,  with  a  fulness  of  know- 
ledge and  an  independence  of  judgment  unknown  in  the 
past,  and  it  has  led  its  votaries  to  regard  in  these  matters 
a  sceptical  and  hesitating  spirit  as  a  virtue,  and  credulity 
and  easiness  of  belief  as  a  vice. 

This  is  not  a  book  of  theology,  and  I  have  no  inten- 
tion of  dilating  on  these  things.  It  must,  however,  be 
manifest  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with  contemporary 
thought  how  largely  these  influences  have  displaced 
theological  beliefs  among  great  numbers  of  educated 
men ;  how  many  things  that  were  once  widely  believed 
have  become  absolutely  incredible ;  how  many  that  were 
once  supposed  to  rest  on  the  plane  of  certainty  have  now 
sunk  to  the  lower  plane  of  mere  probability  or  perhaps 
possibility.  From  the  time  of  Galileo  downwards,  these 
changes  have  been  denounced  as  incompatible  with  the 
whole  structure  of  Christian  belief.  No  less  an  apologist 
than  Bishop  Berkeley  declared  that  the  belief  that  the 
date  of  the  existence  of  the  world  was  approximately  that 
which  could  be  deduced  from  the  book  of  Genesis  was  one 


190  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

of  the  fundamental  beliefs  which  could  not  be  given  up.^ 
When  the  traveller  Brydone  published  his  travels  in 
Sicily  in  1773,  conjecturing,  from  the  deposits  of  lava, 
that  the  world  must  be  much  older  than  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony  admitted,  his  work  was  denounced  as  sub- 
verting the  foundations  of  the  Christian  faith.  The 
same  charges  were  brought  against  the  earlier  geologists, 
and  in  our  own  day  against  the  early  supporters  of  the 
Darwinian  theory ;  and  many  now  living  can  remember 
the  outbursts  of  indignation  against  those  who  first  intro- 
duced the  principles  of  German  criticism  into  English 
thought,  and  who  impugned  the  historical  character  and 
the  assumed  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch. 

It  is  not  surprising  or  unreasonable  that  it  should 
have  been  so,  for  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  these 
changes  have  profoundly  altered  large  portions  of  the 
beliefs  that  were  once  regarded  as  essential.  One  main 
object  of  a  religion  was  believed  to  have  been  to  furnish 
what  may  be  called  a  theory  of  the  universe — to  explain 
its  origin,  its  destiny,  and  the  strange  contradictions  and 
imperfections  it  presents.  The  Jewish  theory  was  a  very 
clear  and  definite  one,  but  it  is  certainly  not  that  of 
modern  science. 

Yet  few  things  are  more  remarkable  than  the  facility 
with  which  these  successive  changes  have  gradually  found 
their  places  within  the  Established  Church,  and  how 
little  that  Church  has  been  shaken  by  this  fact.  Even 
the  Darwinian  theory,  though  it  has  not  yet  passed  into 
the  circle  of  fully  established  truth,  is  in  its  main  lines 
constantly  mentioned  with  approbation  by  the  clergy  of 
the  Church.  The  theory  of  evolution  largely  pervades 
their  teaching.  The  doctrine  that  the  Bible  was  never 
*  Alciph^on,  6th  Dialogue. 


THE   ANGLICAN  EEFORMATION  191 

intended  to  teach  science  or  scientific  facts,  and  also  the 
main  facts  and  conclusions  of  modern  Biblical  criticism, 
have  been  largely  accepted  among  the  most  educated 
clergy.  Very  few  of  them  would  now  deny  the  antiquity 
of  the  world,  the  antiquity  of  man,  or  the  antiquity  of 
death,  or  would  maintain  that  the  Mosaic  cosmogony 
was  a  true  and  literal  account  of  the  origin  of  the  globe 
and  of  man,  or  would  very  strenuously  argue  either  for 
the  Mosaic  authorship  or  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pentateuch. 

And  while  changes  of  this  kind  have  been  going  on 
in  one  direction,  another  great  movement  has  been  taking 
place  in  an  opposite  one.  The  Church  of  England  was 
essentially  a  Protestant  Church ;  though  being  con- 
structed more  than  most  other  Churches  under  political 
influences,  by  successive  stages  of  progress,  and  with  a 
view  to  including  large  and  varying  sections  of  opinion 
in  its  fold,  it  retained,  more  than  other  Churches,  formu- 
laries and  tenets  derived  from  the  Church  it  superseded. 
The  earnest  Protestant  and  Puritan  party  which  domi- 
nated in  Scotland  and  in  the  Continental  Reformation, 
and  which  refused  all  compromise  with  Eome,  had  not 
become  powerful  in  English  public  opinion  till  some  time 
after  the  framework  of  the  Church  was  established.  The 
spirit  of  compromise  and  conservatism  which  already 
characterised  the  English  people  ;  the  great  part  which 
kings  and  lawyers  played  in  the  formation  of  the  Church  ; 
their  desire  to  maintain  in  England  a  single  body,  com- 
prising men  who  had  broken  away  from  the  Papacy  but 
who  had  in  other  respects  no  great  objection  to  Roman 
Catholic  forms  and  doctrines,  and  also  men  seriously 
imbued  with  the  strong  Protestant  feeling  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland  ;  the  strange  ductility  of  belief  and  con- 


192  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

duct  that  induced  the  great  majority  of  the  Enghsh 
clergy  to  retain  their  preferments  and  avoid  persecution 
during  the  successive  changes  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward 
VI.,  Mary,  and  EHzabeth,  all  assisted  in  forming  a 
Church  of  a  very  composite  character.  Two  distinct 
theories  found  their  place  within  it.  According  to  one 
school  it  was  simply  the  pre-Keformation  Church  puri- 
fied from  certain  abuses  that  had  gathered  around  it, 
organically  united  with  it  through  a  divinely  appointed 
episcopacy,  resting  on  an  authoritative  and  ecclesiastical 
basis,  and  forming  one  of  the  three  great  branches  of  the 
Cathohc  Church.  According  to  the  other  school  it  was 
one  of  several  Protestant  Churches,  retaining  indeed  such 
portions  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  organisation  as  might 
be  justified  from  Scripture,  but  not  regarding  them  as 
among  the  essentials  of  Christianity ;  agreeing  with  other 
Protestant  bodies  in  what  was  fundamental,  and  differing 
from  them  mainly  on  points  which  were  non-essential ; 
accepting  cordially  the  principle  that  '  the  Bible  and  the 
Bible  alone  is  the  religion  of  Protestants,'  and  at  the 
same  time  separated  by  the  gravest  and  most  vital 
differences  from  what  they  deemed  the  great  apostasy 
of  Eome. 

It  was  argued  on  the  one  hand  that  in  its  ecclesias- 
tical and  legal  organisation  the  Church  in  England  was 
identical  with  the  Church  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. ; 
that  there  had  been  no  breach  of  continuity ;  that  Bishops 
and  often  the  same  Bishops  sat  in  the  same  sees  before 
and  after  the  Keformation  ;  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
parochial  clergy  were  unchanged,  holding  their  endow- 
ments by  the  same  titles  and  tenures,  subject  to  the  same 
Courts,  and  meeting  in  Convocation  in  the  same  manner 
as  their  predecessors  ;  that  the  old  Catholic  services  were 


CHARACTER   OF  THE   ENGLISH  REFORMATION     193 

merely  translated  and  revised,  and  that  although  Roman 
usurpations  which  had  never  been  completely  acquiesced  in 
had  been  decisively  rejected,  and  although  many  supersti- 
tious novelties  had  been  removed,  the  Church  of  England 
was  still  the  Church  of  St.  Augustine  ;  that  it  had  never 
even  in  the  darkest  period  lost  its  distinct  existence,  and 
that  supernatural  graces  and  sacerdotal  powers  denied  to  all 
schismatics  had  descended  to  it  through  the  Episcopacy  in 
an  unbroken  stream.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  argued 
that  the  essential  of  a  true  Church  lay  in  the  accordance 
of  its  doctrines  with  the  language  of  Scripture  and  not  in 
the  methods  of  Church  government,  and  that  whatever 
might  be  the  case  in  a  legal  point  of  view,  the  theory  of 
the  unity  of  the  Church  before  and  after  the  Reformation 
was  in  a  theological  sense  a  delusion.  The  Church  under 
Henry  VII.  was  emphatically  a  theocracy  or  ecclesiastical 
monarchy,  the  Pope  as  the  supposed  successor  of  the  sup- 
posed prince  of  the  Apostles  being  the  very  keystone  of 
the  spiritual  arch.  Under  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  the 
Church  of  England  had  become  a  kind  of  aristocracy  of 
Bishops,  governed  very  really  as  well  as  theoretically  by 
the  Crown,  totally  cut  off  from  what  called  itself  the 
Chair  of  Peter,  and  placed  under  completely  new  relations 
with  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christendom.  In  this  space 
of  time  Anglican  Christianity  had  discarded  not  only  the 
Papacy  but  also  great  part  of  what  for  centuries  before 
the  change  had  been  deemed  vitally  and  incontestably 
necessary  both  in  its  theology  and  in  its  devotions. 
Though  much  of  the  old  organisation  and  many  of  the 
old  formularies  had  been  retained,  its  articles,  its  homilies, 
the  constant  teaching  of  its  founders  breathed  a  spirit 
of  unquestionable  Protestantism.  The  Church,  which 
remained  attached  to  Rome,  and  which   held  the  same 


194  TEIE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

doctrines,  practised  the  same  devotions  and  performed 
the  same  ceremonies  as  the  English  Church  under 
Henry  VII.,  professed  to  be  infallible,  and  it  utterly 
repudiated  all  connection  with  the  new  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  regarded  it  as  nothing  more  than  a  Protestant 
schism  ;  while  the  Church  of  England  in  her  authorised 
formularies  branded  some  of  the  central  beliefs  and  devo- 
tions of  the  Eoman  Church  as  blasphemous,  idolatrous, 
superstitious  and  deceitful,  and  was  long  accustomed  to 
regard  that  Church  as  the  Church  of  Antichrist  ;  the 
Harlot  of  the  Apocalypse  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the 
Saints.  Each  Church  during  long  periods  and  to  the 
full  measure  of  its  powers  suppressed  or  persecuted  the 
other. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  Erastian  and  also  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Puritan  the  theory  of  the  spiritual  unity  of  these  two 
bodies,  and  the  various  sacerdotal  consequences  that  were 
inferred  from  it,  seemed  incredible,  nor  did  the  first  gene- 
ration of   our  reformers  shrink  from  communion,  sym- 
pathy and  co-operation  with  the  non-episcopal  Protestants 
of  the  Continent.     Although    they  laid  great  stress  on 
patristic  authority  and  consented — chiefly  through  poli- 
tical motives — to  leave  in  the  Prayer-book  many  things 
derived  from  the  older   Church,   yet   the   High  Church 
theory   of   Anglicanism   is   much   more   the  product   of 
the  seventeenth-century  divines  than  of  the  reformers, 
just  as  Roman  Catholicism  is  much  more  akin  to  the 
later  fathers  than  to   primitive   Christianity.      No   one 
could  doubt  on  what  side  were  the  sympathies,  and  what 
were  the  opinions  of  Cranmer,  Latimer,  Eidley,  Jewell 
and  Hooper,  and  what  spirit  pervades  the  articles  and 
the  homilies.     A  Church  which  does  not  claim  to  be  in- 
fallible ;  which  owes  its  special  form  chiefly  to  the  sagacity 


THE   EARLY  HIGH  CHURCH   SCHOOL  195 

of  statesmen ;  in  which  the  supreme  tribunal,  deciding 
what  doctrines  may  be  taught  by  the  clergy,  is  a  secular  law 
court ;  in  which  the  bands  of  conformity  are  so  loose  that 
the  tendencies  and  sentiments  of  the  nation  give  the  com- 
plexion to  the  Church,  appears  in  the  eyes  of  men  of 
these  schools  to  have  no  possible  right  to  claim  or  share 
the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Eome.  It  rests  on  another 
basis.     It  must  be  justified  on  other  grounds. 

These  two  distinct  schools,  however,  have  subsisted 
in  the  Church.  Each  of  them  can  find  some  support  in 
the  Prayer-book,  and  the  old  orthodox  High  Church 
school  which  was  chiefly  elaborated,  and  which  chiefly 
flourished  under  the  Stuarts,  has  produced  a  great  part 
of  the  most  learned  theology  of  Christendom,  and  had  in 
its  early  days  little  or  no  tendency  to  Eome.  It  was  ex- 
clusive and  repellent  on  the  side  of  Nonconformity,  and  it 
placed  Church  authority  very  high,  but  the  immense 
majority  of  its  members  were  intensely  loyal  to  the 
Anglican  Church,  and  lived  and  died  contentedly  within 
its  pale.  There  were,  however,  always  in  that  Church 
men  of  another  kind  whose  true  ideal  lay  beyond  its 
border.  Falkland,  in  a  remarkable  speech,  delivered  in 
1640,  speaks  of  them  with  much  bitterness.  *  Some,*  he 
says,  'have  so  industriously  laboured  to  deduce  them- 
selves from  Kome  that  they  have  given  great  suspicion 
that  in  gratitude  they  desire  to  return  thither,  or  at  least 
to  meet  it  half  way.  Some  have  evidently  laboured  to 
bring  in  an  English  though  not  a  Eoman  Popery;  I 
mean  not  only  the  outside  and  dress  of  it,  but  equally 
absolute.  .  .  .  Nay,  common  fame  is  more  than  ordi- 
narily false  if  none  of  them  have  found  a  way  to  reconcile 
the  opinions  of  Rome  to  the  preferments  of  England,  and 
be  so  absolutely,  directly  and  cordially  Papists  that  it  is 

o  2 


196  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

all  that  1,500Z.  a  year  can  do  to  keep  them  from  confess- 
ing it.' ' 

No  wide  secession  to  Eome,  however,  followed  the 
development  of  this  seventeenth-century  school,  though 
it  played  a  large  part  in  the  nonjuror  schism,  and  with 
the  decay  of  that  schism  and  under  the  latitudinarian 
tendencies  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  greatly  dwindled. 
Since,  however,  the  Tractarian  movement  which  carried 
so  many  leaders  of  the  English  Church  to  Eome,  men  of 
Koman  sympathies  and  Eoman  ideals  have  multiplied 
within  the  Church  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  They 
have  not  only  carried  their  theological  pretensions  in 
the  direction  of  Eome  much  further  than  the  nonjurors, 
they  have  also  in  many  cases  so  transformed  the  old  and 
simple  Anglican  service  by  vestments  and  candles,  and 
banners  and  incense,  and  genuflexions  and  whispered 
prayers,  that  a  stranger  might  well  imagine  that  he  was 
in  a  Eoman  Catholic  church.  They  have  put  forward 
sacerdotal  pretensions  little,  if  at  all,  inferior  to  those  of 
Eome.  The  whole  tendency  of  their  devotional  literature 
and  thought  flows  in  the  Eoman  channel,  and  even  in 
the  most  insignificant  matters  of  ceremony  and  dress 
they  are  accustomed  to  pay  the  greater  Church  the 
homage  of  constant  imitation. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  there  are  some  real 
differences.  The  absolute  authority  and  infallibility  of 
the  Pope  is  sincerely  repudiated  as  an  usurpation,  the 
ritualist  theory  only  conceding  to  him  a  primacy  among 
Bishops.  The  discipline  and  submission  to  ecclesiastical 
authority  also,  which  so  eminently  distinguish  the 
Eoman  Church,  are  wholly  wanting  in  many  of  its 
Anglican  imitators,  and  at  the  same  time  the  Enghsh 

'  Nalson's  Collections,  i.  769,  February  9,  1640. 


AITR ACTIONS   OF   RITUALISM  197 

sense  of  truth  has  proved  sufficient  to  save  the  party 
from  the  tolerance  and  propagation  of  false  miracles  and 
of  grossly  superstitious  practices  so  common  in  Eoman 
Catholic  countries.  In  this  last  respect,  however,  it  is 
probable  that  English  and  American  Koman  Catholics 
are  almost  equally  distinguished  from  Catholics  in  the 
Southern  States  of  Europe  and  of  America.  Still,  when 
all  this  is  admitted,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  there  has 
grown  up  in  a  great  section  of  the  English  Church  a 
sympathy  with  Eome  and  an  antipathy  to  Protestantism 
and  to  Protestant  types  of  thought  and  character  utterly 
alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  Reformers  and  to  the  doctrinal 
formularies  of  the  Church  of  England. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the 
extent  and  depth  of  this  movement.  There  are  wide 
variations  in  the  High  Church  party ;  the  extreme  men 
are  not  the  most  numerous  and  certainly  very  far  from 
the  ablest,  and  many  influences  other  than  convinced 
belief  have  tended  to  strengthen  the  party.  It  has  been 
indeed,  unlike  the  Tractarian  party  which  preceded  it. 
remarkably  destitute  of  literary  or  theological  ability,  and 
has  added  singularly  little  to  the  large  and  noble  theo- 
logical literature  of  the  English  Church.  The  mere 
charm  of  novelty,  which  is  always  especially  powerful  in 
the  field  of  religion,  draws  many  to  the  ritualistic  channel, 
and  thousands  who  care  very  little  for  ritualistic  doctrines 
are  attracted  by  the  music,  the  pageantry,  the  pictorial 
beauty  of  the  ritualistic  services.  Esthetic  tastes  have  of 
late  years  greatly  increased  in  England,  and  the  closing  of 
places  of  amusement  on  Sunday  probably  strengthens  the 
craving  for  more  attractive  services.  The  extreme  High 
Church  party  has  chiefly  fostered  and  chiefly  benefited  by 
this  desire,  but  it  has  extended  much  more  widely.     It 


198  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

has  touched  even  puritanical  and  non-episcopal  bodies, 
and  it  is  sometimes  combined  with  extremely  latitudinarian 
opinions.  There  is,  indeed,  a  type  of  mind  which  finds 
in  such  services  a  happy  anodyne  for  half-suppressed 
doubt.  Petitions  which  in  their  poignant  humiliation  and 
profound  emotion  no  longer  correspond  to  the  genuine 
feelings  of  the  worshipper,  seem  attenuated  and  trans- 
formed when  they  are  intoned,  and  creeds  which  when 
plainly  read  shock  the  understanding  and  the  conscience 
are  readily  accepted  as  parts  of  a  musical  performance. 
Scepticism  as  well  as  belief  sometimes  fills  churches. 
Large  classes  who  have  no  wish  to  cut  themselves  off 
from  religious  services  have  lost  all  interest  in  the  theo- 
logical distinctions  which  once  w^ere  deemed  supremely 
important,  and  all  strong  belief  in  great  parts  of  dogmatic 
systems,  and  such  men  naturally  prefer  services  which  by 
music  and  ornament  gratify  their  tastes,  and  exercise  a 
soothing  or  stimulating  influence  over  the  imagination. 

The  extreme  High  Church  party  has,  however,  other 
elements  of  attraction.  Much  of  its  power  is  due  to  the 
new  springs  of  real  spiritual  life  and  the  new  forms  of 
real  usefulness  and  charity  that  grew  out  of  its  highly 
developed  sacerdotal  system,  and  out  of  the  semi-monastic 
confraternities  which  at  once  foster  and  encourage  and 
organise  an  active  zeal.  The  power  of  the  party  in  acting 
not  only  on  the  cultivated  classes  but  also  on  the  poor  is 
very  manifest,  and  it  has  done  much  to  give  the  Church 
of  England  a  democratic  character  which  in  past  genera- 
tions it  did  not  possess,  and  which  in  the  conditions  of 
modern  life  is  supremely  important.  The  multiplication 
not  only  of  religious  services  but  of  communicants,  and  the 
great  increase  in  the  interest  taken  in  Church  life  in  quarters 
where   the  Kitualist  party  prevail,  cannot  reasonably  be 


•present  position   of  ANGLICANISM  199 


questioned.  Its  highly  ornate  services  draw  many  into 
the  churches  who  never  entered  them  before,  and  they 
are  often  combined  with  a  familiar  and  at  the  same 
time  impassioned  style  of  preaching,  something  like  that 
of  a  Franciscan  friar  or  a  Methodist  preacher,  which  is 
excellently  fitted  to  act  upon  the  ignorant.  If  its  clergy 
have  been  distinguished  for  their  insubordination  to  their 
bishops,  if  they  have  displayed  in  no  dubious  manner  a 
keen  desire  to  aggrandise  their  own  position  and  authority, 
it  is  also  but  just  to  add  that  they  have  been  prominent 
for  the  zeal  and  self-sacrifice  with  which  they  have 
multiplied  services,  created  confraternities,  penetrated  into 
the  worst  and  most  obscure  haunts  of  poverty  and  vice. 

The  result,  however,  of  all  this  is  that  the  conflicting 
tendencies  which  have  always  been  present  in  the  Church 
have  been  greatly  deepened.  There  are  to  be  found 
within  it  men  whose  opinions  can  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  simple  Deism  or  Unitarianism,  and  men  who  abjure 
the  name  of  Protestant  and  are  only  divided  by  the 
thinnest  of  partitions  from  the  Eoman  Church.  And  this 
diversity  exists  in  a  Church  which  is  held  together  by 
articles  and  formularies  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

It  might,  perhaps,  a  priori  have  been  imagined  that  a 
Church  with  so  much  diversity  of  opinion  and  of  spirit 
was  an  enfeebled  and  disintegrated  Church,  but  no  candid 
man  will  attribute  such  a  character  to  the  Church  of 
of  England.  All  the  signs  of  corporate  vitality  are 
abundantly  displayed,  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  it 
is  playing  an  active,  powerful,  and  most  useful  part  in 
English  life.  Looking  at  it  first  of  all  from  the  intel- 
lectual side,  it  is  plain  how  large  a  proportion  of  the 
best  intellect  of  the  country  is  contented,  not  only  to  live 
within  it,  but  to  take  an  active  part  in  its  ministrations. 


200  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

Compare  the  amount  of  higher  Hterature  which  proceeds 
from  clergymen  of  the  EstabHshed  Church  with  the 
amount  which  proceeds  from  the  vastly  greater  body  of 
Catholic  priests  scattered  over  the  world — compare  the 
place  which  the  English  clergy,  or  laymen  deeply  imbued 
with  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  hold  in  EngHsh  litera- 
ture with  the  place  which  Catholic  priests,  or  sincere 
Catholic  laymen,  hold  in  the  literature  of  France,  and  the 
contrast  will  appear  sufficiently  evident.  There  is  hardly 
a  branch  of  serious  English  literature  in  which  Anglican 
clergy  are  not  conspicuous.  There  is  nothing  in  a  false 
and  superstitious  creed  incompatible  with  some  forms  of 
literature.  It  may  easily  ally  itself  with  the  genius  of  a 
poet  or  with  great  beauty  of  style  either  hortatory  or 
narrative.  But  in  the  Church  of  England  literary 
achievement  is  certainly  not  restricted  to  these  forms. 
In  the  fields  of  physical  science,  in  the  fields  of  moral 
philosophy,  metaphysics,  social  and  even  pohtical  philo- 
sophy, and  perhaps  still  more  in  the  fields  of  history, 
its  clergy  have  won  places  in  the  foremost  rank.  It  is 
notorious  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  serious 
criticism,  of  the  best  periodical  writing  in  England,  is  the 
work  of  Anglican  clergymen.  No  one  in  enumerating  the 
leading  historians  of  the  present  century  would  omit  such 
names  as  Milman,  Thirlwall  and  Merivale,  in  the  genera- 
tion which  has  just  passed  away,  or  Creighton  and 
Stubbs  among  contemporaries,  and  these  are  only  eminent 
examples  of  a  kind  of  literature  to  which  the  Church  has 
very  largely  contributed.  Their  histories  are  not  specially 
conspicuous  for  beauty  of  style  and  not  only  conspicuous 
for  their  profound  learning — they  are  marked  to  an 
eminent  degree  by  judgment,  criticism,  impartiality,  a 
desire  for  truth,  a  skill  in  separating  the  proved  from  the 


INTELLECTUAL  POSITION   OF  ANGLICANISM        201 

false  or  the  merely  probable.  Compare  them  with  the 
chief  histories  that  have  been  written  by  Catholic  priests. 
In  past  ages  some  of  the  greatest  works  of  patient, 
lifelong  industry  in  all  literary  history  were  due  to  the 
Catholic  priesthood,  and  especially  to  members  of  the 
monastic  orders ;  even  in  modern  times  they  have  pro- 
duced some  works  of  great  learning,  of  great  dialectic  skill, 
of  great  beauty  of  style,  but  with  scarcely  an  exception 
these  works  bear  upon  them  the  stamp  of  an  advocate  and 
are  written  for  the  purpose  of  proving  a  point,  concealing 
or  explaining  away  the  faults  on  one  side  and  bringing 
into  disproportioned  relief  those  of  the  other.  No  one 
would  look  in  them  for  a  candid  estimate  of  the  merits  of 
an  opponent,  or  for  a  full  statement  of  a  hostile  case. 
Dollinger,  who  would  probably  once  have  been  cited  as 
the  greatest  historian  the  Catholic  priesthood  had  pro- 
duced in  the  nineteenth  century,  died  under  the  anathema 
of  his  Church,  and  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  best 
writing  in  modern  English  Catholicism  has  come  from 
writers  who  have  been  brought  up  in  Protestant  uni- 
versities and  who  have  learnt  their  skill  in  the  Anglican 
Church ! 

It  is  at  least  one  great  test  of  a  living  Church  that  the 
best  intellect  of  the  country  can  enter  into  its  ministry, 
that  it  contains  men  who,  in  nearly  all  branches  of  litera- 
ture, are  looked  upon  by  lay  scholars  with  respect  or 
admiration.  It  is  said  that  the  number  of  young  men  of 
ability  who  take  orders  is  diminishing,  and  that  this  is 
due,  not  merely  to  the  agricultural  depression  which  has 
made  the  Church  much  less  desirable  as  a  profession,  and 
indeed  in  many  cases  almost  impossible  for  those  who 
have  not  some  private  fortune ;  not  merely  to  the  competi- 
tive examination  system,  which  has  opened  out  vast  and 


202  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

attractive  fields  of  ambition  to  the  ablest  laymen,  but  also 
to  the  wide  divergence  of  men  of  the  best  intellect  from  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church  and  the  conviction  that  they  can- 
not honestly  subscribe  its  articles  and  recite  its  formu- 
laries. But  although  this  is,  I  believe,  true,  it  is  also 
true  that  there  is  no  other  Church  which  has  shown 
itself  so  capable  of  attracting  and  retaining  the  services 
of  men  of  general  learning,  criticism  and  ability.  One  of 
the  most  important  features  of  the  English  ecclesiastical 
system  has  been  the  education  of  those  who  are  intended 
for  the  Church,  in  common  with  other  students  in  the 
great  national  universities.  Other  systems  of  education 
may  produce  a  clergy  of  greater  professional  learning 
and  more  intense  and  exclusive  zeal,  but  no  other  system 
of  education  is  so  efficacious  in  maintaining  a  general 
harmony  of  thought  and  tendency  between  the  Church 
and  the  average  educated  opinion  of  the  nation. 

Take  another  test.  Compare  the  Guardian^  which 
represents  better  than  any  other  paper  the  opinions  of 
moderate  Churchmen,  with  the  papers  which  are  most 
read  by  the  French  priesthood  and  have  most  influence 
on  their  opinions.  Certainly  few  English  journalists 
have  equalled  in  ability  Louis  Veuillot,  and  few  papers 
have  exercised  so  great  an  influence  over  the  clergy  of 
the  Church  as  the  Univers  at  the  time  when  he  directed 
it ;  but  no  one  who  read  those  savagely  scurrilous  and 
intolerant  pages,  burning  with  an  impotent  hatred  of  all 
the  progressive  and  liberal  tendencies  of  the  time,  shrink- 
ing from  no  misrepresentation  of  fact  and  from  no  apology 
for  crime  if ,  it  was  in  the  interest  of  the  Church,  could 
fail  to  perceive  how  utterly  out  of  harmony  it  was  with 
the  best  lay  thought  of  France.  English  religious  journal- 
ism has  sometimes,  though  in  a  very  mitigated  degree, 


THE   CHURCH   AS   A   LITERARY   PROFESSION       203 

exhibited  some  of  these  characteristics,  but  no  one  who 
reads  the  Guardian,  which  I  suppose  appeals  to  a  larger 
clerical  public  than  any  other  paper,  can  fail  to  realise  the 
contrast.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  is  habitually  written  in 
the  style  and  temper  of  a  gentleman,  but  that  it  reflects 
most  clearly  in  its  criticism,  its  impartiality,  its  tone  of 
thought,  the  best  intellectual  influences  of  the  time.  Men 
may  agree  or  differ  about  its  politics  or  its  theology,  but 
no  one  who  reads  it  can  fail  to  admit  that  it  is  thoroughly 
in  touch  with  cultivated  lay  opinion,  and  it  is  in  fact  a 
favourite  paper  of  many  who  care  only  for  its  secular 
aspects. 

The  intellectual  ability,  however,  included  among  the 
ministers  of  a  Church,  though  one  test,  is  by  no  means  a 
decisive  and  infallible  one  of  its  religious  life.  During  the 
period  of  the  Renaissance  when  genuine  belief  in  the 
Catholic  Church  had  sunk  to  nearly  its  lowest  point,  most 
men  of  literary  tastes  and  talents  were  either  members  of 
the  priesthood  or  of  the  monastic  orders.  This  was  not 
due  to  any  fervour  of  belief,  but  simply  to  the  fact  that 
the  Church  at  that  time  furnished  almost  the  only  sphere 
in  which  a  literary  life  could  be  pursued  with  comfort, 
without  molestation,  and  with  some  adequate  reward. 
Much  of  the  literary  ability  found  in  the  English  Church 
is  unquestionably  due  to  the  attraction  it  offers,  and  the 
facilities  it  gives  to  those  who  simply  wish  for  a  studious 
life.  The  abolition  of  many  clerical  sinecures,  and  the 
greatly  increased  activity  of  clerical  duty  imposed  by 
contemporary  opinion,  have  no  doubt  rendered  the  pro- 
fession less  desirable  from  this  point  of  view ;  but  even 
now  there  is  no  other  profession  outside  the  Universities 
which  lends  itself  so  readily  to  a  literary  life,  and  a  great 
proportion  of  the  most  eminent  thinkers  and  writers  in 


204  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  Church  of  England  are  eminent  in  fields  that  have 
little  or  no  connection  with  theology. 

Other  tests  of  a  flourishing  Church  are  needed,  but 
they  can  easily  be  found.  Political  power  is  one  test, 
though  it  is  a  very  coarse  and  very  deceptive  one.  Per- 
haps it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  most  superstitious 
creeds  are  often  those  which  exercise  the  greatest  political 
influence,  for  they  are  those  in  which  the  priesthood 
acquire  the  most  absolute  authority.  Nor  does  the  decline 
of  superstition  among  the  educated  classes  always  bring 
with  it  a  corresponding  decline  in  ecclesiastical  influence. 
There  have  been  instances,  both  in  Pagan  and  Christian 
times,  of  a  sceptical  and  highly  educated  ruling  class 
supporting  and  allying  themselves  vnth  a  superstitious 
Church  as  the  best  means  of  governing  or  moralising 
the  masses.  Such  Churches  by  their  skilful  organisa- 
tion, by  their  ascendency  over  individual  rulers,  or  by 
their  political  alliances,  have  long  exercised  an  enormous 
influence,  and  in  a  democratic  age  the  preponderance  of 
political  power  is  steadily  passing  from  the  most  educated 
classes.  At  the  same  time  in  a  highly  civilised  and  per- 
fectly free  country,  in  which  all  laws  of  religious  disquali- 
fication and  coercion  have  disappeared,  and  all  questions 
of  religion  are  submitted  to  perpetual  discussion,  the 
political  power  which  the  Church  of  England  retains  at 
least  proves  that  she  has  a  vast  weight  of  genuine  and 
earnest  opinion  behind  her.  No  politician  will  deny  the 
strength  with  which  the  united  or  greatly  preponderat- 
ing influence  of  the  Church  can  support  or  oppose  a 
party.  It  has  been  said  by  a  cynical  observer  that  the 
three  things  outside  their  own  families  that  average 
Englishmen  value  the  most  are  rank,  money,  and  the 
Church  of  England,  and  certainly  no  good  observer  will 


ITS  EDUCATIONAL  AND   SPIRITUAL   INFLUENCE     205 

form  a  low  estimate  of  the  strength  or  earnestness  of  the 
Church  feehng  in  every  section  of  the  Enghsh  people. 

Still  less  can  it  be  denied  that  the  Church  retains  in  a 
high  degree  its  educational  influence.  For  a  long  period 
national  education  was  almost  wholly  in  its  hands,  and, 
since  all  disqualifications  and  most  privileges  have  been 
abohshed,  it  still  exercises  a  part  in  English  education 
which  excites  the  alarm  of  some  and  the  admiration  of 
others.  It  has  thrown  itself  heartily  into  the  new  politi- 
cal conditions,  and  the  vast  number  of  voluntary  schools 
established  under  clerical  influence,  and  the  immense 
sums  that  are  annually  raised  for  clerical  purposes,  show 
beyond  all  doubt  the  amount  of  support  and  enthusiasm 
behind  it.  In  every  branch  of  higher  education  its  clergy 
are  conspicuous,  and  their  influence  in  training  the 
nation  is  not  confined  to  the  pulpit,  the  University,  or 
the  school.  No  candid  observer  of  English  life  will 
doubt  the  immense  effect  of  the  parochial  system  in 
sustaining  the  moral  level  both  of  principle  and  practice, 
and  the  multitude,  activity,  and  value  of  the  philanthropic 
and  moralising  agencies  which  are  wholly  or  largely  due 
to  the  Anglican  Church. 

Nor  can  it  be  reasonably  doubted  that  the  Church  has 
been  very  efficacious  in  promoting  that  spiritual  life, 
which,  whatever  opinion  men  may  form  of  its  origin  and 
meaning,  is  at  least  one  of  the  great  realities  of  human 
nature.  The  power  of  a  religion  is  not  to  be  solely  or 
mainly  judged  by  its  corporate  action  ;  by  the  institutions 
it  creates  ;  by  the  part  which  it  plays  in  the  government 
of  the  world.  It  is  to  be  found  much  more  in  its  action 
on  the  individual  soul,  and  especially  in  those  times  and 
circumstances  when  man  is  most  isolated  from  society. 
It  is  in  furnishing  the  ideals  and  motives  of  individual 


206  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

life ;  in  guiding  and  purifying  the  emotions  ;  in  promoting 
habits  of  thought  and  feehng  that  rise  above  the  things 
of  earth ;  in  the  comfort  it  can  give  in  age,  sorrow,  dis- 
appointment and  bereavement ;  in  the  seasons  of  sickness, 
vt^eakness,  dechning  faculties,  and  approaching  death  that 
its  power  is  most  felt.  No  one  creed  or  Church  has  the 
monopoly  of  this  power,  though  each  has  often  tried  to 
identify  it  with  something  peculiar  to  itself.  It  may  be 
found  in  the  Catholic  and  in  the  Quaker,  in  the  High 
Anglican  who  attributes  it  to  his  sacramental  system,  and 
in  the  Evangelical  in  whose  eyes  that  system  holds  only 
a  very  subordinate  place.  All  that  need  here  be  said  is 
that  no  one  who  studies  the  devotional  literature  of  the 
English  Church  or  who  has  watched  the  lives  of  its  more 
devout  members  will  doubt  that  this  life  can  largely  exist 
and  flourish  within  its  pale. 

The  attitude  which  men  who  have  been  born  within  that 
Church,  but  who  have  come  to  dissent  from  large  portions 
of  its  theology,  should  bear  to  this  great  instrument  of 
good  is  certainly  not  less  perplexing  than  the  questions 
we  have  been  considering  in  the  preceding  chapters. 
The  most  difficult  position  is,  of  course,  that  of  those 
who  are  its  actual  ministers,  and  who  have  subscribed 
its  formularies.  Each  man  so  situated  must  judge  in 
the  light  of  his  own  conscience.  There  is  a  great 
difference  between  the  case  of  men  who  accept  such 
a  position  in  the  Church,  though  they  differ  funda- 
mentally from  its  tenets,  and  the  case  of  men  who,  having 
engaged  in  its  service,  find  their  old  convictions  modi- 
fied or  shaken,  perhaps  very  gradually,  by  the  advance  of 
science,  or  by  more  matured  thought  and  study.  The 
stringency  of  the  old  form  of  subscription  has  been  much 
mitigated  by  an  Act  of  1865  which  substituted  a  general 


LATITUDINARIAN   TENDENCIES  207 

declaration  that  the  subscriber  believed  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church  as  a  whole  for  a  declaration  that  he  believed 
*  all  and  everything '  in  the  Articles  and  the  Prayer-book. 
The  Church  of  England  does  not  profess  to  be  an  infallible 
Church ;  it  does  profess  to  be  a  National  Church  repre- 
senting and  including  great  bodies  of  more  or  less  diver- 
gent opinion,  and  the  whole  tendency  of  legal  decisions 
since  the  Gorham  case  has  been  to  enlarge  the  circle  of 
permissible  opinion.  The  possibility  of  the  National 
Church  remaining  in  touch  with  the  more  instructed  and 
intellectual  portions  of  the  community  depends  mainly  on 
the  latitude  of  opinion  that  is  accorded  to  its  clergy,  and 
on  their  power  of  welcoming  and  adopting  new  know- 
ledge, and  it  may  reasonably  be  maintained  that  few 
greater  calamities  can  befall  a  nation  than  the  severance 
of  its  higher  intelligence  from  religious  influences. 

It  should  be  remembered,  too,  that  on  the  latitudinarian 
side  the  changes  that  take  place  in  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  consist  much  less  in  the  open  repudiation  of  old 
doctrines  than  in  their  silent  evanescence.  They  drop 
out  of  the  exhortations  of  the  pulpit.  The  relative  im- 
portance of  different  portions  of  the  religious  teaching  is 
changed.  Dogma  sinks  into  the  background.  Narratives 
which  are  no  longer  seriously  believed  become  texts  for 
moral  disquisitions.  The  introspective  habits  and  the 
stress  laid  on  purely  ecclesiastical  duties  which  once  pre- 
ponderated disappear.  The  teaching  of  the  pulpit  tends 
rather  to  the  formation  of  active,  useful  and  unselfish 
lives ;  to  a  clearer  insight  into  the  great  masses  of  reme- 
diable suffering  and  need  that  still  exist  in  the  world  ;  to 
the  duty  of  carrying  into  all  the  walks  of  secular  life  a 
nobler  and  more  unselfish  spirit ;  to  a  habit  of  judging 
men  and  Churches  mainly  by  their  fruits  and  very  little 


•208  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

by  their  beliefs.  The  disintegration  or  decadence  of  old 
religious  beliefs  which  had  long  been  closely  associated 
with  moral  teaching  always  brings  with  it  grave  moral 
dangers,  but  those  dangers  are  greatly  diminished  when 
the  change  of  belief  is  effected  by  a  gradual  transition, 
without  any  violent  convulsion  or  disruption  severing 
men  from  their  old  religious  observances.  Such  a  transi- 
tion has  silently  taken  place  in  England  among  great 
numbers  of  educated  men,  and  in  some  measure  under  the 
influence  of  the  clergy.  Nor  has  it,  I  think,  weakened 
the  Church.  The  standard  of  duty  among  such  men  has 
not  sunk,  but  has  in  most  departments  perceptibly  risen  : 
their  zeal  has  not  diminished,  though  it  flows  rather  in 
philanthropic  than  in  purely  ecclesiastical  channels.  The 
conviction  that  the  special  dogmas  which  divided  other 
Protestant  bodies  from  the  Establishment  rested  on  no 
substantial  basis,  and  have  no  real  importance,  tells  in 
favour  of  the  larger  and  the  more  liberal  Church,  and  the 
comprehensiveness  which  allows  highly  accentuated  sacer- 
dotalism and  latitudinarianism  in  the  same  Church  is  in 
the  eyes  of  many  of  them  rather  an  element  of  strength 
than  of  weakness. 

Few  men  have  watched  the  religious  tendencies  of  the 
time  with  a  keener  eye  than  Cardinal  Newman,  and  no 
man  hated  with  a  more  intense  hatred  the  latitudinarian 
tendencies  which  he  witnessed.  His  judgment  of  their 
effect  on  the  Establishment  is  very  remarkable.  In  a 
letter  to  his  friend  Isaac  Williams  he  says  :  *  Everything 
I  hear  makes  me  fear  that  latitudinarian  opinions  are 
spreading  furiously  in  the  Church  of  England.  I  grieve 
deeply  at  it.  The  Anglican  Church  has  been  a  most  use- 
ful breakwater  against  Scepticism.  The  time  might  come 
when  you,  as  well  as  I,  might  expect  that  it  would  be  said 


OBLIGATIONS   GROWING   OUT  OF  ESTABLISHMENTS   209 

above,  "Why  cumbereth  it  the  ground?"  but  at  present 
it  upholds  far  more  truth  in  England  than  any  other  form 
of  religion  would,  and  than  the  Catholic  Eoman  Church 
could.  But  what  I  fear  is  that  it  is  tending  to  a  powerful 
Establishment  teaching  direct  error,  and  more  powerful 
than  it  has  ever  been  ;  thrice  powerful  because  it  does 
teach  error. '^ 

It  is,  however,  of  course,  evident  that  the  latitude  of 
opinion  which  may  be  reasonably  claimed  by  the  clergy 
of  a  Church  encumbered  with  many  articles  and  doctrinal 
formularies  is  not  unlimited,  and  each  man  must  for 
himself  draw  the  line.  The  fact,  too,  that  the  Church  is 
an  Established  Church  imposes  some  special  obligations 
on  its  ministers.  It  is  their  first  duty  to  celebrate  public 
worship  in  such  a  form  that  aU  members  of  the  Church 
of  England  may  be  able  to  join  in  it.  Whatever  inter- 
pretations may  be  placed  upon  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Church,  those  ceremonies,  at  least,  should  be  substantially 
the  same.  A  stranger  who  enters  a  church  which  he 
has  never  before  seen  should  be  able  to  feel  that  he  is 
certain  of  finding  public  worship  intelligibly  and  decently 
performed,  as  in  past  generations  it  has  been  celebrated  in 
all  sections  of  the  Established  Church.  It  has,  in  my 
opinion,  been  a  gross  scandal,  following  a  gross  neglect  of 
duty,  that  this  primary  obligation  has  been  defied,  and 
that  services  are  held  in  English  churches  which  would 
have  been  almost  unrecognisable  by  the  churchmen  of 
a  former  generation,  and  which  are  manifest  attempts 
to  turn  the  English  public  worship  into  an  imitation  of 
the  Eomish  Mass.  Men  have  a  perfect  right,  within  the 
widest  limits,  to  perform  what  religious  services  and  to 

'  Autobiography  of  Isaac   Williams,  p.  132.    This  letter  was  written 
in  1863. 


210  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

preach  what  religious  doctrines  they  please,  but  they  have 
not  a  right  to  do  so  in  an  Established  Church. 

The  censorship  of  opinions  is  another  thing,  and  in 
the  conditions  of  English  life  it  has  never  been  very 
effectively  maintained.  The  latitude  of  opinion  granted 
in  an  Established  Church  is,  and  ought  to  be,  very  great, 
but  it  is,  I  think,  obvious  that  on  some  topics  a  greater 
degree  of  reticence  of  expression  should  be  observed  by  a 
clergyman  addressing  a  miscellaneous  audience  from  the 
pulpit  of  an  Established  Church  than  need  be  required  of 
him  in  private  life,  or  even  in  his  published  books. 

The  attitude  of  laymen  whose  opinions  have  come 
to  diverge  widely  from  the  Church  formularies  is  less 
perplexing,  and  except  in  as  far  as  the  recent  revival  of 
sacerdotal  pretensions  has  produced  a  reaction,  there  has, 
if  I  mistake  not,  of  late  years  been  a  decided  tendency  in 
the  best  and  most  cultivated  lay  opinion  of  this  kind  to 
look  with  increasing  favour  on  the  Established  Church. 
The  complete  abolition  of  the  religious  and  political  dis- 
qualifications, which  once  placed  its  maintenance  in 
antagonism  with  the  interests  of  large  sections  of  the 
people  ;  the  abolition  of  the  indelibility  of  orders  which 
excluded  clergymen  who  changed  their  views  from  all 
other  means  of  livelihood  ;  the  greater  elasticity  of  opinion 
permitted  within  its  pale,  and  the  elimination  from  the 
Statute-book  of  nearly  all  penalties  and  restrictions  resting 
solely  upon  ecclesiastical  grounds,  have  all  tended  to 
diminish  with  such  men  the  objections  to  the  Church. 
It  is  a  Church  which  does  not  injure  those  who  are 
external  to  it,  or  interfere  with  those  who  are  mere 
nominal  adherents.  It  is  more  and  more  looked  upon  as 
a  machine  of  well-organised  beneficence,  discharging 
efficiently  and  without  corruption  functions  of  supreme 


PHASES  OF  BELIEF  211 

utility,  and  constituting  one  of  the  main  sources  of 
spiritual  and  moral  life  in  the  community.  None  of 
the  modern  influences  of  society  can  be  confidently  said 
to  have  superseded  it.  Experience  has  furnished  much 
evidence  of  the  insufficiency  of  mere  intellectual  education 
if  it  is  unaccompanied  by  the  education  of  character,  and 
it  is  on  this  side  that  modern  education  is  most  defective. 
While  it  undoubtedly  makes  men  far  more  keenly  sensible 
than  in  the  past  to  the  vast  inequalities  of  human  lots, 
the  habit  of  constantly  holding  out  material  prizes  as  its 
immediate  objects,  and  the  disappearance  of  those  coercive 
methods  of  education  which  once  disciplined  the  will, 
make  it  perhaps  less  efficient  as  an  instrument  of  moral 
amelioration. 

Some  habits  of  thought  also,  that  have  grown  rapidly 
among  educated  men,  have  tended  powerfully  in  the  same 
direction.  The  sharp  contrasts  between  true  and  false  in 
matters  of  theology  have  been  considerably  attenuated. 
The  point  of  view  has  changed.  It  is  believed  that  in  the 
history  of  the  world  gross  and  material  conceptions  of 
religion  have  been  not  only  natural,  but  indispensable,  and 
that  it  is  only  by  a  gradual  process  of  intellectual  evolution 
that  the  masses  of  men  become  prepared  for  higher 
and  purer  conceptions.  Superstition  and  illusion  play  no 
small  part  in  holding  together  the  great  fabric  of  society. 
*  Every  falsehood,'  it  has  been  said,  '  is  reduced  to  a 
certain  malleability  by  an  alloy  of  truth,'  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  truths  of  the  utmost  moment  are,  in  certain 
stages  of  the  world's  history,  only  operative  when  they 
are  clothed  with  a  vesture  of  superstition.  The  Divine 
Spirit  filters  down  to  the  human  heart  through  a  gross 
and  material  medium.  And  what  is  true  of  different 
stages   of   human  history   is   not   less   true  of   different 

r  2 


212  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

contemporary  strata  of  knowledge  and  intelligence.  In 
spite  of  democratic  declamation  about  the  equality  of 
man,  it  is  more  and  more  felt  that  the  same  kind  of 
teaching  is  not  good  for  every  one.  Truth,  when  un- 
diluted, is  too  strong  a  medicine  for  many  minds.  Some 
things  which  a  highly  cultivated  intellect  would  probably 
discard,  and  discard  without  danger,  are  essential  to  the 
moral  being  of  multitudes.  There  is  in  all  great  religious 
systems  something  that  is  transitory  and  something  that 
is  eternal.  Theological  interpretations  of  the  phenomena 
of  outward  nature  which  surround  and  influence  us,  and 
mythological  narratives  which  have  been  handed  down  to 
us  from  a  remote,  uncritical  and  superstitious  past,  may 
be  transformed  or  discredited,  but  there  are  elements  in 
religion  which  have  their  roots  much  less  in  the  reason 
of  man  than  in  his  sorrows  and  his  affections,  and  are 
the  expression  of  wants,  moral  appetites  and  aspirations 
which  are  an  essential,  indestructible  part  of  his  nature. 

No  one,  I  think,  can  doubt  that  this  way  of  thinking, 
whether  it  be  right  or  wrong,  has  very  widely  spread 
through  educated  Europe,  and  it  is  a  habit  of  thought 
which  commonly  strengthens  with  age.  Young  men 
discuss  religious  questions  simply  as  questions  of  truth  or 
falsehood.  In  later  life  they  more  frequently  accept  their 
creed  as  a  working  hypothesis  of  life ;  as  a  consolation  in 
innumerable  calamities ;  as  the  one  supposition  under 
which  life  is  not  a  melancholy  anti-climax  ;  as  the  indis- 
pensable sanction  of  moral  obligation  ;  as  the  gratification 
and  reflection  of  needs,  instincts  and  longings  which  are 
planted  in  the  deepest  recesses  of  human  nature ;  as  one 
of  the  chief  pillars  on  which  society  rests.  The  proselytis- 
ing, the  aggressive,  the  critical  spirit  diminishes.  Very 
often  tliey  deliberately  turn  away  their  thoughts   from 


TKANSFOKMATIONS   OF   RELIGION  '213 

questions  which  appear  to  them  to  lead  only  to  endless 
controversy,  or  to  mere  negative  conclusions,  and  base 
their  moral  life  on  some  strong  unselfish  interest  for  the 
benefit  of  their  kind.  In  active,  useful  and  unselfish  work 
they  find  the  best  refuge  from  the  perplexities  of  belief, 
and  the  best  field  for  the  cultivation  of  their  moral  nature, 
and  work  done  for  the  benefit  of  others  seldom  fails  to 
react  powerfully  on  their  own  happiness.  Nor  is  it  always 
those  w^ho  have  most  completely  abandoned  dogmatic 
sj^stems  w^ho  are  the  least  sensible  to  the  moral  beauty 
which  has  grown  up  around  them.  The  music  of  the 
village  church,  w^hich  sounds  so  harsh  and  commonplace 
to  the  worshipper  within,  sometimes  fills  with  tears  the 
eyes  of  the  stranger  who  sits  without,  listening  among  the 
tombs. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  how^  far  the  partial  truce  w'hich 
has  now  fallen  in  England  over  the  great  antagonisms  of 
belief  is  likely  to  be  permanent.  No  one  who  knows  the 
w^orld  can  be  insensible  to  the  fact  that  a  large  and  growing 
proportion  of  those  w^ho  habitually  attend  our  religious 
services  have  come  to  diverge  very  widely,  though  in  many 
different  degrees,  from  the  beliefs  which  are  expressed  or 
implied  in  the  formularies  they  use.  Custom,  fashion,  the 
charm  of  old  associations,  the  cravings  of  their  own  moral 
or  spiritual  nature,  a  desire  to  support  a  useful  system  of 
moral  training,  to  set  a  good  example  to  their  children,  their 
household,  or  their  neighbours,  keep  them  in  their  old 
place  w^hen  the  beliefs  w^hich  they  profess  with  their  lips 
have  in  a  great  measure  ebbed  away.  1  do  not  midertake 
to  blame  or  to  judge  them.  Individual  conscience  and  cha- 
racter, and  particular  circumstances  have,  in  these  matters, 
a  decisive  voice.  But  there  are  times  when  the  difference 
betw^een  professed  belief  and  real  belief  is  too  great  for 


214  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

endurance,  and  when  insincerity  and  half-belief  affect 
seriously  the  moral  character  of  a  nation.  *  The  deepest, 
nay,  the  only  theme  of  the  world's  history,  to  which  all 
others  are  subordinate,'  said  Goethe,  *is  the  conflict  of 
faith  and  unbelief.  The  epochs  in  which  faith,  in  what- 
ever form  it  may  be,  prevails,  are  the  marked  epochs  in 
human  history,  full  of  heart-stirring  memories  and  of 
substantial  gains  for  all  after  times.  The  epochs  in 
which  unbelief,  in  whatever  form  it  may  be,  prevails,  even 
when  for  the  moment  they  put  on  the  semblance  of  glory 
and  success,  inevitably  sink  into  insignificance  in  the  eyes 
of  posterity,  which  will  not  waste  its  thoughts  on  things 
barren  and  unfruitful.' 

Many  of  my  readers  have  probably  felt  the  force  of 
such  considerations  and  the  moral  problems  which  they 
suggest,  and  there  have  been  perhaps  moments  when  they 
have  asked  themselves  the  question  of  the  poet — 

Tell  me,  my  soul,  what  is  thy  creed  ? 
Is  it  a  faith  or  only  a  need  ? 

They  will  reflect,  however,  that  a  need,  if  it  be  universally 
felt  when  human  nature  is  in  its  highest  and  purest  state, 
furnishes  some  basis  of  belief,  and  also  that  no  man  can 
venture  to  assign  limits  to  the  transformations  which 
religion  may  undergo,  without  losing  its  essence  or  its 
power.  Even  in  the  field  of  morals  these  have  been  very 
great,  though  universal  custom  makes  us  insensible  to  the 
extent  to  which  we  have  diverged  from  a  literal  obser- 
vance of  Evangelical  precepts.  We  should  hardly  write 
over  the  Savings  Bank,  *  Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow, 
for  the  morrow  will  take  thought  for  itself,'  or  over  the 
Bank  of  England,  *  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasure 
upon  earth,'  *  How  hardly  shall  a  rich  man  enter  into  the 


ANGLICAN   SACERDOTALISM  215 

Kingdom  of  God,'  or  over  the  Foreign  Office,  or  the  Law 
Court,  or  the  prison,  '  Kesist  not  evil,'  '  He  that  smiteth 
thee  on  thy  right  cheek  turn  to  him  the  other  also,' 
*  He  that  taketh  away  thy  coat  let  him  have  thy  cloak 
also.'  Can  it  be  said  that  the  whole  force  and  meaning 
of  such  words  is  represented  by  an  industrial  society 
in  which  the  formation  of  habits  of  constant  provi- 
dence with  the  object  of  averting  poverty  or  increasing 
comfort  is  deemed  one  of  the  first  of  duties  and  a  main 
element  and  measure  of  social  progress ;  in  which  the 
indiscriminate  charity  which  encourages  mendicancy  and 
discourages  habits  of  forethought  and  thrift  is  far  more 
seriously  condemned  than  an  industrial  system  based 
on  the  keenest,  the  most  deadly,  and  often  the  most 
malevolent  competition ;  in  which  wealth  is  universally 
sought,  and  universally  esteemed  a  good  and  not  an  evil, 
provided  only  it  is  honestly  obtained,  and  wisely  and 
generously  used ;  in  which,  although  wanton  aggression 
and  a  violent  and  quarrelsome  temper  are  no  doubt  con- 
demned, it  is  esteemed  the  duty  of  every  good  citizen  to 
protect  his  rights  whenever  they  are  unjustly  infringed ; 
in  which  war  and  the  preparation  for  war  kindle  the  most 
passionate  enthusiasm  and  absorb  a  vast  proportion  of  the 
energies  of  Christendom,  and  in  which  no  Government 
could  remain  a  week  in  power  if  it  did  not  promptly 
resent  the  smallest  insult  to  the  national  flag  ? 

It  is  a  question  of  a  different  kind  whether  the  sacer- 
dotal spirit  which  has  of  late  years  so  largely  spread  in 
the  English  Church  can  extend  without  producing  a 
violent  disruption.  To  cut  the  tap  roots  of  priestcraft 
was  one  of  the  main  aims  and  objects  of  the  Eeformation, 
and,  for  reasons  I  have  already  stated,  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  party  which  would  re-establish  it  has  by  any 


216  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

means  the  strength  that  has  been  attributed  to  it.  It  is 
true  that  the  Broad  Church  party,  though  it  reflects  faith- 
fully the  views  of  large  numbers  of  educated  laymen,  has 
never  exercised  an  influence  in  active  Church  life  at  all 
proportionate  to  the  eminence  of  its  leading  representa- 
tives. It  is  true  also  that  the  Evangelical  party  has  in 
a  very  remarkable  degree  lost  its  old  place  in  the  Anglican 
pulpit  and  in  religious  literature,  though  its  tenets  still 
form  the  staple  of  the  preaching  of  the  Salvation  Army 
and  of  most  other  street  preachers  vi^ho  exercise  a  real 
and  widespread  influence  over  the  poor.  But  the  middle 
and  lower  sections  of  English  society  are,  I  believe,  at 
bottom,  profoundly  hostile  to  priestcraft ;  and  although 
the  dread  of  Popery  has  diminished,  they  are  very  far 
from  being  ready  to  acquiesce  in  any  attempt  to  restore 
the  dominion  which  their  fathers  discarded. 

In  one  respect,  indeed,  sacerdotalism  in  the  Anglican 
Church  is  a  worse  thing  than  in  the  Eoman  Church,  for 
it  is  undisciplined  and  unregulated.  The  history  of  the 
Church  abundantly  shows  the  dangers  that  have  sprung 
from  the  Confessional,  though  the  Eoman  Catholic  will 
maintain  that  its  habitually  restraining  and  moralising 
inflaence  greatly  outweighs  these  occasional  abuses.  But 
in  the  Eoman  Church  the  practice  of  confession  is  carried 
on  under  the  most  severe  ecclesiastical  supervision  and 
discipline.  Confession  can  only  be  made  to  a  celibate 
priest  of  mature  age,  who  is  bound  to  secrecy  by  the 
most  solemn  oath,  who,  except  in  cases  of  grave  illness, 
confesses  only  in  an  open  church,  and  who  has  gone 
through  a  long  course  of  careful  education  specially  and 
skilfully  designed  to  fit  him  for  the  duty.  None  of  these 
conditions  are  observed  in  Anglican  Confession. 

In  other  respects,  indeed,  the  sacerdotal  spirit  is  never 


ANGLICAN   SACEEDOTALISM  217 

likelj'  to  be  quite  the  same  as  in  the  Eoman  Church.  A 
married  clergy,  who  have  mixed  in  all  the  lay  influences 
of  an  English  university,  and  v^ho  still  take  part  in  the 
pursuits,  studies,  social  intercourse  and  amusements  of 
laymen,  are  not  likely  to  form  a  separate  caste  or  to  con- 
stitute a  very  formidable  priesthood.  It  is  perhaps  a  little 
difficult  to  treat  their  pretensions  with  becoming  gravity, 
and  the  atmosphere  of  unlimited  discussion  which  envelops 
Englishmen  through  their  whole  lives  has  effectually  de- 
stroyed the  danger  of  coercive  and  restrictive  laws  directed 
against  opinion.  Moral  coercion  and  the  tendency  to  in- 
terfere by  law  on  moral  grounds  with  the  habits  of  men, 
even  when  those  habits  in  no  degree  interfere  with  others, 
have  increased.  It  is  one  of  the  marked  tendencies  of 
Anglo-Saxon  democracy,  and  it  is  very  far  from  being 
peculiar  to,  or  even  specially  prominent  in,  any  one 
Church.  But  the  desire  to  repress  the  expression  of 
opinions  by  force,  which  for  so  many  centuries  marked 
with  blood  and  fire  the  power  of  mediaeval  sacerdotalisra, 
is  wholly  alien  to  modern  English  nature.  Amid  all  the 
fanaticisms,  exaggerations,  and  superstitions  of  belief,  this 
kind  of  coercion,  at  least,  is  never  likely  to  be  formidable, 
nor  do  I  believe  that  in  the  inost  extreme  section  of  the 
sacerdotal  clergy  there  is  any  desire  for  it.  There  has 
been  one  significant  contrast  between  the  history  of 
Catholicism  and  Anglicanism  in  the  present  century. 
In  the  Catholic  Church  the  Ultramontane  element  has 
steadily  dominated,  restricting  liberty  of  opinion,  and 
important  tenets  which  were  once  undefined  by  the 
Church,  and  on  which  sincere  Catholics  had  some  lati- 
tude of  opinion,  have  been  brought  under  the  iron 
yoke.  This  is  no  doubt  largely  due  to  the  growth  of 
scepticism  and  indifference,  which  have  made  the  great 


218  TIIE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

body  of  educated  laymen  hostile  or  indifferent  to  the 
Church,  and  have  thrown  its  management  mainly  into  the 
hands  of  the  priesthood  and  the  more  bigoted,  ignorant 
and  narrow-minded  laymen.  But  in  the  Anglican  Church 
educated  laymen  are  much  less  alienated  from  Church  life, 
and  a  tribunal  which  is  mainly  lay  exercises  the  supreme 
authority.  As  a  consequence  of  these  conditions,  although 
the  sacerdotal  element  has  greatly  increased,  the  latitude 
of  opinion  within  the  Church  has  steadily  grown. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  serious 
dangers  do  not  await  the  Church  if  the  unprotestantising 
influences  that  have  spread  within  it  continue  to  extend. 
It  is  not  likely  that  the  nation  will  continue  to  give  its 
support  to  the  Church  if  that  Church  in  its  main  tenden- 
cies cuts  itself  off  from  the  Reformation.  The  conversions 
to  Catholicism  in  England,  though  probably  much  ex- 
aggerated, have  been  very  numerous,  and  it  is  certainly 
not  surprising  that  it  should  be  so.     If  the  Church  of 
Eome  permitted  Protestantism  to  be  constantly  taught  in 
her  pulpits  and  Protestant  types  of  worship  and  character 
to  be  habitually  held  up  to  admiration,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  many  of  her  worshippers  w^ould  be  shaken. 
If  the  Church  of  England  becomes  in  general,  what  it 
already  is  in  some  of  its  churches,  it  is  not  likely  that 
English  public  opinion  will  permanently  acquiesce  in  its 
privileged   position   in   the    State.     If   it  ceases  to  be  a 
Protestant  Church,  it  will  not  long  remain  an  estabhshed 
one,  and  its  disestablishment  would  probably  be  followed 
by  a  disruption  in  which  opinions  would  be  more  sharply 
defined  and  the  latitude  of  belief  and  the  spirit  of  com- 
promise that  now  characterise  our  English  religious  life 
might  be  seriously  impaired. 


CONDITIONS  OF  THE   GAME   OF  LIFE  219 


CHAPTEK  XII 

THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  CHARACTER 

Of  all  the  tasks  which  are  set  before  man  in  life,  the 
education  and  management  of  his  character  is  the  most 
important,  and,  in  order  that  it  should  be  successfully 
pursued,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  make  a  calm  and 
careful  survey  of  his  own  tendencies,  unblinded  either 
by  the  self-deception  which  conceals  errors  and  magnifies 
excellences,  or  by  the  indiscriminate  pessimism  which 
refuses  to  recognise  his  powers  for  good.  He  must  avoid 
the  fatalism  which  would  persuade  him  that  he  has  no 
power  over  his  nature,  and  he  must  also  clearly  recognise 
that  this  power  is  not  unlimited.  Man  is  like  a  card- 
player  who  receives  from  Nature  his  cards — his  disposi- 
tion, his  circumstances,  the  strength  or  weakness  of  his 
will,  of  his  mind,  and  of  his  body.  The  game  of  life  is 
one  of  blended  chance  and  skill.  The  best  player  will  be 
defeated  if  he  has  hopelessly  bad  cards,  but  in  the  long 
run  the  skill  of  the  player  will  not  fail  to  tell.  The  power 
of  man  over  his  character  bears  much  resemblance  to 
his  power  over  his  body.  Men  come  into  the  world  with 
bodies  very  unequal  in  their  health  and  strength ;  with 
hereditary  dispositions  to  disease;  with  organs  varying 
greatly  in  their  normal  condition.  At  the  same  time  a 
temperate  or  intemperate  life,  skilful  or  unskilful  regimen, 
physical  exercises  well  adapted  to  strengthen  the  weaker 


220  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

parts,  physical  apathy,  vicious  indulgence,  misdirected  or 
excessive  effort,  will  all  in  their  different  v^^ays  alter  his 
bodily  condition  and  increase  or  diminish  his  chances 
of  disease  and  premature  death.  The  power  of  will  over 
character  is,  however,  stronger,  or,  at  least,  wdder  than  its 
power  over  the  body.  There  are  organs  which  lie  wholly 
beyond  its  influence;  there  are  diseases  over  which  it 
can  exercise  no  possible  influence,  but  there  is  no  part  of 
our  moral  constitution  which  we  cannot  in  some  degree 
influence  or  modify. 

It  has  often  seemed  to  me  that  diversities  of  taste 
throw  much  light  on  the  basis  of  character.  Why  is  it 
that  the  same  dish  gives  one  man  keen  pleasure  and  to 
another  is  loathsome  and  repulsive?  To  this  simple 
question  no  real  answer  can  be  given.  It  is  a  fact 
of  our  nature  that  one  fruit,  or  meat,  or  drink  will  give 
pleasure  to  one  palate  and  none  whatever  to  another.  At 
the  same  time,  while  the  original  and  natural  difference  is 
undoubted,  there  are  many  differences  which  are  wholly 
or  largely  due  to  particular  and  often  transitory  causes. 
Dishes  have  an  attraction  or  the  reverse  because  they 
are  associated  with  old  recollections  or  habits.  Habit  will 
make  a  Frenchman  like  his  melon  with  salt  while  an 
Englishman  prefers  it  with  sugar.  An  old  association  of 
ideas  will  make  an  Englishman  shrink  from  eating  a  frog 
or  a  snail,  though  he  would  probably  like  each  if  he  ate 
it  without  knowing  it,  and  he  could  easily  learn  to  do 
so.  The  kind  of  cookery  which  one  age  or  one  nation 
generally  likes,  another  age  or  another  nation  finds  dis- 
tasteful. The  eye  often  governs  the  taste,  and  a  dish 
which,  when  seen,  excites  intense  repulsion,  would  have 
no  such  repulsion  to  a  blind  man.  Every  one  who  has 
moved  much  about  the  world,  and  especially  in  uncivilised 


ANALOGIES   OF  TASTE   AND   CHARACTER  221 

countries,  will  get  rid  of  many  old  antipathies,  will  lose 
the  fastidiousness  of  his  taste,  and  will  acquire  new 
and  genuine  tastes.  The  original  innate  difference  is  not 
wholly  destroyed,  but  it  is  profoundly  and  variously 
modified. 

These  changes  of  taste  are  very  analogous  to  what 
takes  place  in  our  moral  dispositions.  They  are  for  the 
most  part  in  themselves  simply  external  to  morals,  though 
there  is  at  least  one  conspicuous  exception.  Many — it  is 
to  be  hoped  most — men  might  spend  their  lives  with  full 
access  to  intoxicating  liquors  without  even  the  temptation 
of  getting  drunk.  Apart  from  all  considerations  of  religion, 
morals,  social,  physical,  or  intellectual  consequences,  they 
abstain  from  doing  so  simply  as  a  matter  of  taste.  With 
other  men  the  pleasure  of  excessive  drinking  is  such  that 
it  requires  an  heroic  effort  of  the  will  to  resist  it.  There 
are  men  who  are  not  only  so  constituted  that  it  is  their 
greatest  pleasure,  but  who  are  even  born  with  a  craving 
for  drink.  In  no  form  is  the  terrible  fact  of  heredity 
more  clearly  or  more  tragically  displayed.  Many,  too, 
who  had  originally  no  such  craving  gradually  acquire  it — 
sometimes  by  mere  social  influence,  which  makes  exces- 
sive drinking  the  habit  of  their  circle,  more  frequently 
through  depression  or  sorrow,  which  gives  men  a  longing 
for  some  keen  pleasure  in  which  they  can  forget  them- 
selves, or  through  the  jaded  habit  of  mind  and  body  which 
excessive  work  produces,  or  through  the  dreary,  colourless, 
joyless  surroundings  of  sordid  poverty.  Drink  and  the 
sensual  pleasures,  if  viciously  indulged,  produce  (doubtless 
through  physical  causes)  an  intense  craving  for  their 
gratification.  This,  however,  is  not  the  case  with  all  our 
pleasures.  Many  are  keenly  enjoyed  when  present,  yet 
not  seriously  missed  when  absent.     Sometimes,  too,  the 


222  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

effect  of  over-indulgence  is  to  vitiate  and  deaden  the 
palate,  so  that  v^hat  once  was  pleasing  ceases  altogether 
to  be  an  object  of  desire.  This,  too,  has  its  analogue 
in  other  things.  "We  have  a  familiar  example  in  the 
excessive  novel-reader,  who  begins  with  a  kind  of  mental 
intoxication,  and  who  ends  with  such  a  weariness  that  he 
finds  it  a  serious  effort  to  read  the  books  which  were  once 
his  strongest  temptation. 

Tastes  of  the  palate  also  naturally  change  with  age, 
and  with  the  accompanying  changes  of  the  body.  The 
schoolboy,  who  bitterly  repines  because  the  smallness  of 
his  allowance  restricts  his  power  of  buying  tarts  and 
sweetmeats,  will  probably  grow  into  a  man  who,  with 
many  shillings  in  his  pocket,  daily  passes  the  confectioner's 
shop  without  the  smallest  desire  to  enter  it. 

It  is  evident  that  there  is  a  close  analogy  between 
these  things  and  that  collection  of  likes  and  dislikes, 
moral  and  intellectual,  which  forms  the  primal  base  of 
character,  and  which  mainly  determines  the  complexion 
of  our  lives.  As  Marcus  Aurelius  said :  *  Who  can  change 
the  desires  of  man  ? '  That  which  gives  the  strongest 
habitual  pleasure,  whether  it  be  innate  or  acquired,  will 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  ultimately  dominate. 
Certain  things  will  always  be  intensely  pleasurable,  and 
certain  other  things  indifferent  or  repellent,  and  this 
magnetism  is  the  true  basis  of  character,  and  with  the 
majority  of  men  it  mainly  determines  conduct.  By  the 
associations  of  youth  and  by  other  causes,  these  natural 
likings  and  dislikings  may  be  somewhat  modified,  but 
even  in  youth  our  power  is  very  limited,  and  in  later  life 
it  is  much  less.  No  real  believer  in  free-will  will  hold 
that  man  is  an  absolute  slave  to  his  desires.  No  man  who 
knows  the  world  will  deny  that  with  average  man  the 


A   MISTAKE   IN   EDUCATION  223 

strongest  passion  or  desire  will  prevail — happy  when  that 
desire  is  not  a  vice. 

Passions  weaken,  but  habits  strengthen  with  age,  and 
it  is  the  great  task  of  youth  to  set  the  current  of  habit, 
and  to  form  the  tastes  which  are  most  productive  of 
happiness  in  life.  Here,  as  in  most  other  things,  opposite 
exaggerations  are  to  be  avoided.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  looking  forward  too  rigidly  and  too  exclusively  to  the 
future — to  a  future  that  may  never  arrive.  This  is  the 
great  fault  of  the  over-educationist,  who  makes  early 
life  a  burden  and  a  toil,  and  also  of  those  who  try  to 
impose  on  youth  the  tastes  and  pleasures  of  the  man. 
Youth  has  its  own  pleasures,  which  will  always  give  it 
most  enjoyment,  and  a  happy  youth  is  in  itself  an  end. 
It  is  the  time  when  the  power  of  enjoyment  is  most  keen, 
and  it  is  often  accompanied  by  such  extreme  sensitiveness 
that  the  sufferings  of  the  child  for  what  seem  the  most 
trivial  causes,  probably  at  least  equal  in  acuteness,  though 
not  in  durability,  the  sufferings  of  a  man.  Many  a  parent 
standing  by  the  coffin  of  his  child  has  felt  wath  bitterness 
how  much  of  the  measure  of  enjoyment  that  short  life 
might  have  known  has  been  cut  off  by  an  injudicious 
education.  And  even  if  adult  life  is  attained,  the  evils  of 
an  unhappy  childhood  are  seldom  wholly  compensated. 
The  pleasures  of  retrospect  are  among  the  most  real  we 
possess,  and  it  is  around  our  childish  days  that  our  fondest 
associations  naturally  cluster.  An  early  over-strain  of  our 
powers  often  leaves  behind  it  lasting  distortion  or  weak- 
ness, and  a  sad  childhood  introduces  into  the  character 
elements  of  morbidness  and  bitterness  that  will  not 
disappear. 

The  first  great  rule  in  judging  of  pleasures  is  that 
so  well  expressed   by   Seneca  :    '  Sic  praesentibus  utaris 


224  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

voluptatibiis  ut  futuris  non  noceas  ' — so  to  use  present 
pleasures  as  not  to  impair  future  ones.  Drunkenness, 
sensuality,  gambling,  habitual  extravagance  and  self- 
indulgence,  if  they  become  the  pleasures  of  youth,  will 
almost  infallibly  lead  to  the  ruin  of  a  life.  Pleasures 
that  are  in  themselves  innocent  lose  their  power  of 
pleasing  if  they  become  the  sole  or  main  object  of 
pursuit. 

In  starting  in  life  we  are  apt  to  attach  a  dispropor- 
tionate value  to  tastes,  pleasures,  and  ideals  that  can  only 
be  even  approximately  satisfied  in  youth,  health,  and 
strength.  We  have,  I  think,  an  example  of  this  in  the 
immense  place  which  athletic  games  and  out-of-door 
sports  have  taken  in  modern  English  life.  They  are  cer- 
tainly not  things  to  be  condemned.  They  have  the  direct 
effect  of  giving  a  large  amount  of  intense  and  innocent 
pleasure,  and  they  have  indirect  effects  which  are  still 
more  important.  In  as  far  as  they  raise  the  level  of 
physical  strength  and  health,  and  dispel  the  morbidness 
of  temperament  which  is  so  apt  to  accompany  a  sedentary 
life,  and  a  diseased  or  inert  frame,  they  contribute  power- 
fully to  lasting  happiness.  They  play  a  considerable  part 
in  the  formation  of  friendships  which  is  one  of  the  best 
fruits  of  the  period  between  boyhood  and  mature  man- 
hood. Some  of  them  give  lessons  of  courage,  perseve- 
rance, energy,  self-restraint,  and  cheerful  acquiescence  in 
disappointment  and  defeat  that  are  of  no  small  value  in 
the  formation  of  character,  and  when  they  are  not 
associated  with  gambling,  they  have  often  the  inesti- 
mable advantage  of  turning  young  men  away  from  vicious 
pleasures.  At  the  same  time  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
they  hold  an  exaggerated  prominence  in  the  lives  of  young 
Englishmen   of   the  present   generation.     It  is  not  too 


SUPERIORITY   OF   INTELLECTUAL   TASTES  2i>o 

much  to  say  that  among  large  sections  of  the  students 
at  our  Universities,  and  at  a  time  when  intellectual  ambi- 
tion ought  to  be  most  strong  and  when  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  is  most  important,  proficiency  in  cricket  or 
boating  or  football  is  more  prized  than  any  intellectual 
achievement.  I  have  heard  a  good  judge,  who  had  long  been 
associated  with  English  University  life,  express  his  opinion 
that  during  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  the  relative 
intellectual  position  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes  in 
England  has  been  materially  changed  owing  to  the  dis- 
proportioned  place  which  outdoor  amusements  have  as- 
sumed in  the  lives  of  the  former.  It  is  the  impression  of 
very  competent  judges  that  a  genuine  love,  reverence  and 
enthusiasm  for  intellectual  things  is  less  common  among 
the  young  men  of  the  present  day  than  it  was  in  the  days 
of  their  fathers.  The  predominance  of  the  critical  spirit 
which  chills  enthusiasm,  and  still  more  the  cram  system 
which  teaches  young  men  to  look  on  the  prizes  that  are 
to  be  won  by  competitive  examinations  as  the  supreme 
end  of  knowledge,  no  doubt  largely  account  for  this, 
but  much  is  also  due  to  the  extravagant  glorification  of 
athletic  games. 

If  we  compare  the  class  of  pleasures  I  have  described 
with  the  taste  for  reading  and  kindred  intellectual 
pleasures,  the  superiority  of  the  latter  is  very  manifest. 
To  most  young  men,  it  is  true,  a  game  will  probably  give 
at  least  as  much  pleasure  as  a  book.  Nor  must  we 
measure  the  pleasure  of  reading  altogether  by  the  language 
of  the  genuine  scholar.  It  is  not  every  one  who  could 
say,  like  Gibbon,  that  he  would  not  exchange  his  love  of 
reading  for  all  the  wealth  of  the  Indies.  Very  many 
would  agree  with  him,  but  Gibbon  was  a  man  with  an 
intense  natural  love  of  knowledge  and  the  weak  health  of 

Q 


iiHe  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

his  early  life  intensified  this  predominant  passion.  But 
while  the  tastes  which  require  physical  strength  decline 
or  pass  with  age,  that  for  reading  steadily  grows.  It  is 
illimitable  in  the  vistas  of  pleasure  it  opens ;  it  is  one  of  the 
most  easily  satisfied,  one  of  the  cheapest,  one  of  the  least 
dependent  on  age,  seasons,  and  the  varying  conditions  of 
life.  It  cheers  the  invalid  through  years  of  weakness  and 
confinement ;  illuminates  the  dreary  hours  of  the  sleep- 
less night;  stores  the  mind  with  pleasant  thoughts, 
banishes  ennui,  fills  up  the  unoccupied  interstices  and 
enforced  leisures  of  an  active  life ;  makes  men  for  a  time 
at  least  forget  their  anxieties  and  sorrows,  and  if  it  is 
judiciously  managed  it  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  means 
of  training  character  and  disciplining  and  elevating 
thought.  It  is  eminently  a  pleasure  which  is  not  only 
good  in  itself  but  enhances  many  others.  By  extending 
the  range  of  our  knowledge,  by  enlarging  our  powers  of 
sympathy  and  appreciation,  it  adds  incalculably  to  the 
pleasures  of  society,  to  the  pleasures  of  travel,  to  the 
pleasures  of  art,  to  the  interest  we  take  in  the  vast 
variety  of  events  which  form  the  great  world-drama 
around  us. 

To  acquire  this  taste  in  early  youth  is  one  of  the  best 
fruits  of  education,  and  it  is  especially  useful  when  the 
taste  for  reading  becomes  a  taste  for  knowledge  and  when 
it  is  accompanied  by  some  specialisation  and  concentra- 
tion, and  by  some  exercise  of  the  powers  of  observation. 
*  Many  tastes  and  one  hobby '  is  no  bad  ideal  to  be  aimed 
at.  The  boy  who  learns  to  collect  and  classify  fossils, 
or  flowers,  or  insects,  who  has  acquired  a  love  of  chemical 
experiments,  who  has  begun  to  form  a  taste  for  some 
particular  kind  or  department  of  knowledge,  has  laid  the 
foundation  of  much  happiness  in  life. 


VERSATILITY  AXD   CONCENTRATION  227 

In  the  selection  of  pleasures  and  the  cultivation  of 
tastes  much  wisdom  is  shown  in  choosing  in  such  a  way 
that  each  should  form  a  complement  to  the  others ;  that 
different  pleasures  should  not  clash  but  rather  cover 
different  areas  and  seasons  of  life ;  that  each  should  tend 
to  correct  faults  or  deficiencies  of  character  which  the 
others  may  possibly  produce.  The  young  man  who  starts 
in  life  with  keen  literary  tastes  and  also  with  a  keen  love 
of  out-of-door  sports,  and  who  possesses  the  means  of 
gratifying  each,  has  perhaps  provided  himself  with  as 
many  elements  of  happiness  as  mere  amusements  can 
ever  furnish.  One  set  of  pleasures,  however,  often  kills 
the  capacity  for  enjoying  others,  and  some  which  in 
themselves  are  absolutely  innocent,  by  blunting  the 
enjoyment  of  better  things,  exercise  an  injurious  influence 
on  character.  Habitual  novel-reading,  for  example,  often 
destroys  the  taste  for  serious  literature,  and  few  things 
^  tend  so  much  to  impair  a  sound  literary  perception  and 
'to  vulgarise  the  character  as  the  habit  of  constantly 
saturating  the  mind  with  inferior  literature,  even  when 
that  literature  is  in  no  degree  immoral.  Sometimes  an 
opposite  evil  may  be  produced.  Excessive  fastidiousness 
greatly  limits  our  enjoyments,  and  the  inestimable  gift  of 
'extreme  concentration  is  often  dearly  bought.  The  well- 
known  confession  of  Darwin  that  his  intense  addiction 
to  science  had  destroyed  his  power  of  enjoying  even  the 
noblest  imaginative  literature  represents  a  danger  to 
which  many  men  who  have  achieved  much  in  the  higher 
and  severer  forms  of  scientific  thought  are  subject.  Such 
men  are  usually  by  their  original  temperament,  and 
become  still  more  by  acquired  habit,  men  of  strong,  nar- 
row, concentrated  natures  whose  thoughts  like  a  deep  and 
rapid  stream  confined  in  a  restricted   channel  flow  with 

Q  2 


228  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

resistless  energy  in  one  direction.  It  is  by  the  sacrifice 
of  versatility  that  they  do  so  much,  and  the  result  is 
amply  sufficient  to  justify  it.  But  it  is  a  real  sacrifice, 
depriving  them  of  many  forms  both  of  capacity  and  of 
enjoyment. 

The  same  pleasures  act  differently  on  different  charac- 
ters, especially  on  the  differences  of  character  that  ac- 
company difference  of  sex.  I  have  myself  no  doubt  that 
the  movement  which  in  modern  times  has  so  widely 
opened  to  women  amusements  that  were  once  almost 
wholly  reserved  for  men,  has  been  on  the  whole  a  good. 
It  has  produced  a  higher  level  of  health,  stronger  nerves, 
less  morbid  characters,  and  it  has  given  keen  and  inno- 
cent enjoyment  to  many  who  from  their  circumstances 
and  surroundings  once  found  their  lives  very  dreary  and 
insipid.  Yet  most  good  observers  will  agree  that  amuse- 
ments which  have  no  kind  of  evil  effect  on  men  often  in 
some  degree  impair  the  graces  or  characters  of  women, 
and  that  it  is  not  quite  with  impunity  that  one  sex  tries  to 
live  the  life  of  the  other.  Some  pleasures,  too,  exercise  a 
much  larger  influence  than  others  on  the  general  habits 
of  life.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  invention  of 
the  bicycle,  bringing  with  it  an  immense  increase  of  out- 
door life,  of  active  exercise,  and  of  independent  habits,  has 
revolutionised  the  course  of  many  lives.  Some  amuse- 
ments which  may  in  themselves  be  but  little  valued,  are 
wisely  cultivated  as  helping  men  to  move  more  easily  in 
different  spheres  of  society,  or  as  providing  a  resource  for 
old  age.  Talleyrand  was  not  wholly  wrong  in  his  re- 
proach to  a  man  who  had  never  learned  to  play  whist : 
*  What  an  unhappy  old  age  you  are  preparing  for  your- 
self ! ' 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  differences  that  may  be 


TWO  FORMS  OF  EDUCATION  229 


I 

^B)und  in  different  countries  and  ages  in  the  relative  im- 
^Kortance  attached  to  external  circumstances  and  to  dis- 
I  positions  of  mind,  as  means  of  happiness,  and  the  tendency 
in  the  more  progressive  nations  to  seek  their  happiness 
mainly  in  improved  circumstances.  Another  great  line  of 
distinction  is  between  education  that  acts  specially  upon 
the  desires  and  that  which  acts  specially  upon  the  will. 
The  great  perfection  of  modern  systems  of  education  is 
chiefly  of  the  former  kind.  Its  object  is  to  make  know- 
ledge and  virtue  attractive,  and  therefore  an  object  of 
desire.  It  does  so  partly  by  presenting  them  in  the 
most  alluring  forms,  partly  by  connecting  them  as  closely 
as  possible  wdth  rewards.  The  great  principle  of  modern 
moral  education  is  to  multiply  innocent  and  beneficent 
interests,  tastes,  and  ambitions.  It  is  to  make  the  path 
of  virtue  the  natural,  the  easy,  the  pleasing  one ;  to  form 
a  social  atmosphere  favourable  to  its  development,  making 
duty  and  interest  as  far  as  possible  coincident.  Vicious 
pleasures  are  combated  by  the  multiplication  of  healthy 
ones,  and  by  a  clearer  insight  into  the  consequences  of 
each.  An  idle  or  inert  character  is  stimulated  by  holding 
up  worthy  objects  of  interest  aiid  ambition,  and  it  is  the 
aim  alike  of  the  teacher  and  the  legislator  to  make  the 
grooves  and  channels  of  life  such  as  tend  naturally  and 
easily  towards  good.  But  the  education  of  the  will ;  the 
power  of  breasting  the  current  of  the  desires  and  doing 
for  long  periods  what  is  distasteful  and  painful  is  much 
less  cultivated  than  in  some  periods  of  the  past. 

Many  things  contribute  to  this.  The  rush  and  hurry 
of  modern  existence  and  the  incalculable  multitude  and 
variety  of  fleeting  impressions  that  in  the  great  centres  of 
civilisation  pass  over  the  mind  are  very  unfavourable  to 
concentration,  and  perhaps  still  more  to  the  direct  culti- 


230  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

vation  of  mental  states.  Amusements,  and  the  appetite 
for  amusements,  have  greatly  extended.  Life  has  become 
more  full.  The  long  leisures — the  introspective  habits — 
the  vita  comtemplativa  so  conspicuous  in  the  old  Catholic 
discipline  grows  ver}^  rare.  Thoughts  and  interests  are 
more  thrown  on  the  external ;  and  the  comfort,  the 
luxury,  the  softness,  the  humanity  of  modern  life,  and 
especially  of  modern  education,  make  men  less  inclined 
to  face  the  disagreeable  and  endure  the  painful. 

The  starting-point  of  education  is  thus  silently  chang- 
ing. Perhaps  the  extent  of  the  change  is  best  shown  by 
the  old  Catholic  ascetic  training.  Its  supreme  object  was 
to  discipline  and  strengthen  the  will ;  to  accustom  men 
habitually  to  repudiate  the  pleasurable  and  accept  the 
painful,  to  mortify  the  most  natural  tastes  and  affections  ; 
to  narrow  and  weaken  the  empire  of  the  desires  ;  to  make 
men  wholly  independent  of  outward  circumstances ;  to 
preach  self-renunciation  as  itself  an  end. 

Men  will  always  differ  about  the  merits  of  this  system. 
In  my  own  opinion  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  in  the 
period  of  Catholic  ascendency  the  moral  standard  was,  on 
the  whole  and  in  its  broad  lines,  higher  than  our  own. 
The  repression  of  the  sensual  instincts  was  the  central 
fact  in  ascetic  morals  ;  but,  even  tested  by  this  test,  it  is 
at  least  very  doubtful  whether  it  did  not  fail.  The  with- 
drawal from  secular  society  of  the  best  men  did  much  to 
restrict  the  influences  for  good,  and  the  habit  of  aiming  at 
an  unnatural  ideal  was  not  favourable  to  common,  every- 
day, domestic  virtue.  The  history  of  sacerdotal  and  mo- 
nastic celibacy  abundantly  shows  how  much  vice  that 
might  easily  have  been  avoided  grew  out  of  the  adoption 
of  an  unnatural  standard,  and  how  often  it  led  in  those 
who  had  attained  it  to  grave   distortions  of  character. 


SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY   CHARACTER  231 

Affections  and  impulses,  which  were  denied  their  healthy 
and  natural  vent,  either  became  wholly  atrophied  or  took 
other  and  morbid  forms,  and  the  hard,  cruel,  self-righteous 
fanatic,  equally  ready  to  endure  or  to  inflict  suffering,  was 
I  a  not  unnatural  result.  But  whatever  may  have  been  its 
failures  and  its  exaggerations.  Catholic  asceticism  was  at 
!  least  a  great  school  for  discipHning  and  strengthening  the 
will,  and  the  strength  and  discipline  of  the  will  is  one  of 
the  first  elements  of  virtue  and  of  happiness. 
^  In  the  grave  and  noble  type  of  character  which  pre- 
■| vailed  in  English  and  American  life  during  the  seven- 
J^teenth  century,  the  strength  of  will  was  conspicuously 
apparent.  Life  was  harder,  simpler,  more  serious,  and 
less  desultory  than  at  present,  and  strong  convictions 
shaped  and  fortified  the  character.  '  It  was  an  age,'  says 
a  great  American  writer,  '  when  what  we  call  talent  had 
far  less  consideration  than  now,  but  the  massive  materials 
which  produce  stability  and  dignity  of  character  a  great 
deal  more.  The  people  possessed  by  hereditary  right  the 
quality  of  reverence,  which,  in  their  descendants,  if  it 
survive  at  all,  exists  in  smaller  proportion  and  with  a 
vastly  diminished  force  in  the  selection  and  estimate  of 
public  men.  The  change  may  be  for  good  or  ill,  and  is 
partly  perhaps  for  both.  In  that  old  day  the  English  settler 
on  these  rude  shores,  having  left  king,  nobles,  and  all  degrees 
^  of  awful  rank  behind,  while  still  the  faculty  and  necessity 
;  of  reverence  were  strong  in  him,  bestowed  it  on  the  white 
hair  and  venerable  brow  of  age  ;  on  long-tried  integrity  ; 
n  soHd  wisdom  and  sad-coloured  experience ;  on  endow- 
ments of  that  grave  and  weighty  order  which  give  the 
idea  of  permanence  and  come  under  the  general  definition 
of  respectability.  These  primitive  statesmen  therefore — 
Bradstreet,  Endicott,  Dudley,  Bellingham,  and  their  com- 


232  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

peers — who  were  elevated  to  power  by  the  early  choice  of 
the  people,  seem  to  have  been  not  often  brilliant,  but  dis- 
tinguished by  a  ponderous  sobriety  rather  than  activity  of 
intellect.  They  had  fortitude  and  self-reliance,  and  in 
time  of  difficulty  or  peril  stood  up  for  the  welfare  of 
the  State  like  a  line  of  cliffs  against  a  tempestuous 
tide.' ' 

The  power  of  the  will,  however,  even  when  it  exists 
in  great  strength,  is  often  curiously  capricious.  History 
is  full  of  examples  of  men  who  in  great  trials  and  emer- 
gencies have  acted  with  admirable  and  persevering 
heroism,  yet  who  readily  succumbed  to  private  vices  or 
passions.  The  will  is  not  the  same  as  the  desires,  but  the 
connection  between  them  is  very  close.  A  love  for  a  dis- 
tant end ;  a  dominating  ambition  or  passion,  will  call 
forth  long  perseverance  in  wholly  distasteful  work  in  men 
whose  will  in  other  fields  of  life  is  lamentably  feeble. 
Every  one  who  has  embarked  with  real  earnestness  in 
some  extended  literary  enterprise  which  as  a  whole  repre- 
sents the  genuine  bent  of  his  talent  and  character  will  be 
struck  with  his  exceptional  power  of  traversing  persever- 
ingly  long  sections  of  this  enterprise  for  which  he  has 
no  natural  aptitude  and  in  which  he  takes  no  pleasure. 
Military  courage  is  with  most  men  chiefly  a  matter  of 
temperament  and  impulse,  but  there  have  been  conspicu- 
ous instances  of  great  soldiers  and  sailors  who  have 
frankly  acknowledged  that  they  never  lost  in  battle  an 
intense  constitutional  shrinking  from  danger,  though  by 
the  force  of  a  strong  will  they  never  suffered  this  timidity 
to  govern  or  to  weaken  them.  With  men  of  very  vivid 
imagination  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to  timidity  as  they 
realise  more  than  ordinary  men  danger  and  suffering.     On 

'  Hawthorne's  Scarlet  Letter,  ch.  xxii. 


VARIETIES  OF  COURAGE  233 

the  other  hand  it  has  often  been  noticed  how  cahnly  the 
callous,  semi-torpid  temperament  that  characterises  many 
of  the  worst  criminals  enables  them  to  meet  death  upon 
the  gallows. 

In  Courage  itself,  too,  there  are  many  varieties.  The 
courage  of  the  soldier  and  the  courage  of  the  martyr 
are  not  the  same,  and  it  by  no  means  follows  that  either 
w^ould  possess  that  of  the  other.  Not  a  few  men  who 
are  capable  of  leading  a  forlorn  hope,  and  who  never 
shrink  from  the  bayonet  and  the  cannon,  have  shown 
themselves  incapable  of  bearing  the  burden  of  respon- 
sibility, enduring  long-continued  suspense,  taking  decisions 
which  might  expose  them  to  censure  or  unpopularity. 
The  active  courage  that  encounters  and  delights  in  danger 
is  often  found  in  men  who  show  no  courage  in  bearing 
suffering,  misfortune,  or  disease.  In  passive  courage  the 
woman  often  excels  the  man  as  much  as  in  active  courage 
the  man  exceeds  the  woman.  Even  in  active  courage 
familiarity  does  much ;  sympathy  and  enthusiasm  play 
great  and  often  very  various  parts,  and  curious  anomalies 
may  be  found.  The  Teutonic  and  the  Latin  races  are 
probably  equally  distinguished  for  their  military  courage, 
but  there  is  a  clear  difference  between  them  in  the  nature  of 
that  courage  and  in  the  circumstances  or  conditions  under 
which  it  is  usually  most  splendidly  displayed.  The  danger 
incurred  by  the  gladiator  was  far  greater  than  that  which 
was  encountered  by  the  soldier,  but  Tacitus  mentions  ^  that 
when  some  of  the  bravest  gladiators  w^ere  employed  in  the 
Eoman  army  they  were  found  wholly  inefficient,  as  they 
were  much  less  capable  than  the  ordinary  soldiers  of  mili- 
tary courage. 

The  circumstances  of  life  are   the   great   school   for 

'  Hist.  ii.  35. 


234  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

forming  and  strengthening  the  will,  and  in  the  excessive 
competition  and  struggle   of   modern   industriahsm  this 
school  is  not  wanting.     But  in  ethical  and  educational 
systems  the  value  of  its  cultivation  is  often  insufficiently 
felt.     Yet  nothing  which  is  learned  in  youth  is  so  really 
valuable  as  the  power  and  the  habit  of  self-restraint,  of 
self-sacrifice,   of  energetic,  continuous   and  concentrated 
effort.     In  the  best  of  us  evil  tendencies  are  always  strong 
and  the  path  of  duty  is  often  distasteful.     With  the  most 
favourable  wind  and  tide  the  bark  will  never  arrive  at  the 
harbour  if   it  has  ceased  to   obey  the   rudder.     A  weak 
nature  which  is  naturally  kindly,  affectionate  and  pure, 
which  floats  through  life  under  the  impulse  of  the  feel- 
ings, with  no  real  power  of  self-restraint,  is  indeed  not 
without  its  charm,  and  in  a  well-organised  society,  wdth 
good  surroundings  and  few  temptations,  it  may  attain  a 
high   degree   of   beauty ;  but   its   besetting   failings  will 
steadily  grow ;  without  fortitude,  perseverance  and  prin- 
ciple, it  has  no  recuperative  energy,  and  it  will  often  end 
in  a  moral  catastrophe  which  natures  in  other  respects 
much    less    happily    compounded    would    easily    avoid. 
Nothing  can  permanently  secure  our  moral  being  in  the 
absence  of  a  restraining  will  basing  itself  upon  a  strong 
sense  of  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong,  upon  the 
firm  groundwork  of  principle  and  honour. 

Experience  abundantly  shows  how  powerfully  the  steady 
action  of  such  a  will  can  operate  upon  innate  defects, 
converting  the  constitutional  idler  into  the  indefatigably 
industrious,  checking,  limiting  and  sometimes  almost 
destroying  constitutional  irritability  and  vicious  passions. 
The  natural  power  of  the  will  in  different  men  differs 
greatly,  but  there  is  no  part  of  our  nature  which  is  more 
strengthened  by  exercise  or  more  weakened  by  disuse. 


THE  IDLE   RICH  235 

The  minor  faults  of  character  it  can  usually  correct,  but 
when  a  character  is  once  formed  and  when  its  tendencies 
are  essentially  vicious,  radical  cure  or  even  considerable 
amelioration  is  very  rare.  Sometimes  the  strong  influ- 
ence of  religion  effects  it.  Sometimes  it  is  effected  by  an 
illness,  a  great  misfortune,  or  the  total  change  of  associa- 
tions that  follows  emigration.  Marriage  perhaps  more 
frequently  than  any  other  ordinary  agency  in  early  life 
transforms  or  deeply  modifies  the  character,  for  it  puts  an 
end  to  powerful  temptations  and  brings  with  it  a  profound 
change  of  habits  and  motives,  associations  and  desires. 
But  we  have  all  of  us  encountered  in  life  depraved  natures 
in  which  vicious  self-indulgence  had  attained  such  a 
strength  and  the  recuperating  and  moralising  elements 
were  so  fatally  weak,  that  we  clearly  perceive  the  disease  to 
be  incurable,  and  that  it  is  hardly  possible  that  any  change 
of  circumstances  could  even  seriously  mitigate  it.  In  what 
proportion  this  is  the  fault  or  the  calamity  of  the  patient 
no  human  judgment  can  accurately  tell. 

Few  things  are  sadder  than  to  observe  how  frequently 
the  inheritance  of  great  wealth  or  even  of  easy  competence 
proves  the  utter  and  speedy  ruin  of  a  young  man,  except 
when  the  administration  of  a  large  property,  or  the  neces- 
sity of  carrying  on  a  great  business,  or  some  other  propitious 
circumstance  provides  him  with  a  clearly  defined  sphere 
of  work.  The  majority  of  men  will  gladly  discard  dis- 
tasteful work  which  their  circumstances  do  not  require, 
and  in  the  absence  of  steady  work  and  in  the  possession 
of  all  the  means  of  gratification,  temptations  assume  an 
overwhelming  strength  and  the  springs  of  moral  life  are 
fatally  impaired.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the 
average  longevity  in  this  small  class  is  far  less  than  in 
that  of  common  men,  and  that  even  when  natural  capacity 


236  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

is  considerable  it  is  more  rarely  displayed.  To  a  man 
with  a  real  desire  for  work  such  circumstances  are  indeed 
of  inestimable  value,  giving  him  the  leisure  and  the 
opportunities  of  appljang  himself  without  distraction  and 
from  early  manhood  to  the  kind  of  work  that  is  most 
suited  to  him.  Sometimes  this  takes  place,  but  much 
more  frequently  vicious  tastes  or  a  simply  idle  or  purpose- 
less life  are  the  result.  Sometimes  indeed  a  large  amount 
of  desultory  and  unregulated  energy  remains,  but  the 
serious  labour  of  concentration  is  shunned  and  no  real 
result  is  attained.  The  stream  is  there,  but  it  turns  no 
mill. 

Most  men  escape  this  danger  through  the  circum- 
stances of  life  which  make  serious  and  steady  work 
necessary  to  their  livelihood,  and  in  the  majority  of  cases 
the  kind  of  work  is  so  clearly  marked  out  that  they  have 
little  choice.  When  some  choice  exists,  the  rule  which  I 
have  already  laid  down  should  not  be  forgotten.  Men 
should  choose  their  work  not  only  according  to  their 
talents  and  their  opportunities,  but  also  as  far  as  possible 
according  to  their  characters.  They  should  select  the 
kinds  which  are  most  fitted  to  bring  their  best  qualities 
into  exercise,  or  should  at  least  avoid  those  which  have  a 
special  tendency  to  develop  or  encourage  their  dominant 
defects.  On  the  whole  it  will  be  found  that  men's  cha- 
racters are  much  more  deeply  influenced  by  their  pursuits 
than  by  their  opinions. 

The  choice  of  work  is  one  of  the  great  agencies  for 
the  management  of  character  in  youth.  The  choice  of 
friends  is  another.  In  the  words  of  Burke,  *  The  law  of 
opinion  ....  is  the  strongest  principle  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  frame  of  the  human  mind,  and  more  of  the 
happiness  and  unhappiness  of  man  reside  in  that  inward 


POWEK  OF  AVILL   OVER  THOUGHTS  237 

principle  than  in  all  external  circumstances  put  together.'  ^ 
This  is  true  of  the  great  public  opinion  of  an  age  or 
country  which  envelopes  us  like  an  atmosphere,  and  by 
its  silent  pressure  steadily  and  almost  insensibly  shapes 
or  influences  the  whole  texture  of  our  lives.  It  is  still 
more  true  of  the  smaller  circle  of  our  intimacies  which 
will  do  more  than  almost  any  other  thing  to  make  the 
path  of  virtue  easy  or  difficult.  How  large  a  proportion 
of  the  incentives  to  a  noble  ambition,  or  of  the  first 
temptations  to  evil,  may  be  traced  to  an  early  friendship, 
and  it  is  often  in  the  little  circle  that  gathers  round  a 
college  table  that  the  measure  of  life  is  first  taken,  and 
ideals  and  enthusiasms  are  formed  which  give  a  colour 
to  all  succeeding  years.  To  admire  strongly  and  to 
admire  wisely  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  best  means  of  moral 
improvement. 

Very  much,  how^ever,  of  the  management  of  character 
can  only  be  accomplished  by  the  individual  himself  acting 
in  complete  isolation  upon  his  own  nature  and  in  the 
chamber  of  his  own  mind.  The  discipline  of  thought, 
the  establishment  of  an  ascendency  of  the  will  over  our 
courses  of  thinking,  the  power  of  casting  away  morbid 
trains  of  reflection  and  turning  resolutely  to  other  sub- 
jects or  aspects  of  life ;  the  power  of  concentrating  the 
mind  vigorously  on  a  serious  subject  and  pursuing  con- 
tinuous trains  of  thought,  forms  perhaps  the  best  fruit  of 
judicious  self-education.  Its  importance,  indeed,  is  mani- 
fold. In  the  higher  walks  of  intellect  this  power  of 
mental  concentration  is  of  supreme  value.  Newton  is 
said  to  have  ascribed  mainly  to  an  unusual  amount  of  it 
his  achievements  in  philosophy,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  same  might  be  said  by  most  other  great  thinkers.     In 

'  Speech  on  tbe  Impeachment  of  Warren  Hastin«,'s. 


238  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

the  pursuit  of  happiness  hardly  anything  in  external  cir- 
cumstances is  so  really  valuable  as  the  power  of  casting 
off  worry,  turning  in  times  of  sorrow  to  healthy  work, 
taking  habitually  the  brighter  view  of  things.  It  is  in 
such  exercises  of  will  that  we  chiefly  realise  the  truth  of 
the  lines  of  Tennyson  : 

Oh,  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong, 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long. 

In  moral  culture  it  is  not  less  important  to  acquire 
the  power  of  discarding  the  demoralising  thoughts  and 
imaginations  that  haunt  so  many,  and  meeting  tempta- 
tion by  calling  up  purer,  higher  and  restraining  thoughts. 
The  faculty  we  possess  of  alternating  and  intensifying 
our  own  motives  by  bringing  certain  thoughts,  or  images, 
or  subjects  into  the  foreground  and  throwing  others  into 
the  background,  is  one  of  our  chief  means  of  moral  pro- 
gress. The  cultivation  of  this  power  is  a  far  wiser  thing 
than  the  cultivation  of  that  introspective  habit  of  mind 
which  is  perpetually  occupied  with  self-analysis  or  self- 
examination,  and  which  is  constantly  and  remorsefully 
dwelling  upon  past  faults  or  upon  the  morbid  elements 
in  our  nature.  In  the  morals  which  are  called  minor, 
though  they  affect  deeply  the  happiness  of  mankind,  the 
importance  of  the  government  of  thought  is  not  less 
apparent.  The  secret  of  good  or  bad  temper  is  our 
habitual  tendency  to  dwell  upon  or  to  fly  from  the  irri- 
tating and  the  inevitable.  Content  or  discontent,  ami- 
ability or  the  reverse,  depend  mainly  upon  the  disposition 
of  our  minds  to  turn  specially  to  the  good  or  to  the  evil 
sides  of  our  own  lot,  to  the  merits  or  to  the  defects 
of  those  about  us.  A  power  of  turning  our  thoughts 
from  a  given  subject,  though  not  the  sole   element   in 


POWER  OF  THROWING   OFF   SORROW  239 

self-control,   is   at   least   one  of   its  most  important  in- 
gredients. 

This  power  of  the  will  over  the  thoughts  is  one  in 
which  men  differ  enormously.  Thus — to  take  the  most 
familiar  instance — the  capacity  for  worry,  with  all  the 
exaggerations  and  distortions  of  sentiment  it  implies,  is 
very  evidently  a  constitutional  thing,  and  where  it  exists 
to  a  high  degree  neither  reason  nor  will  can  effectually 
cure  it.  Such  a  man  may  have  the  clearest  possible  in- 
tellectual perception  of  its  uselessness  and  its  folly.  Yet 
it  will  often  banish  sleep  from  his  pillow,  follow  him 
with  an  habitual  depression  in  all  the  walks  of  life,  and 
make  his  measure  of  happiness  much  less  than  that  of 
others  who  with  far  less  propitious  circumstances  are 
endued  by  nature  with  the  gift  of  lightly  throwing  off  the 
past  and  looking  forward  with  a  sanguine  and  cheerful 
spirit  to  the  future.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate 
the  different  degrees  of  suffering  the  same  trouble  will 
produce  in  different  men,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
happiness  of  a  life  depends  much  less  on  the  amount  of 
pleasurable  or  painful  things  that  are  encountered,  than 
upon  the  turn  of  thought  which  dwells  chiefly  on  one  or 
on  the  other.  It  is  very  evident  that  buoyancy  of  tem- 
perament is  not  a  thing  that  increases  with  civilisation 
or  education.  It  is  mainly  physical.  It  is  greatly  in- 
fluenced by  climate  and  by  health,  and  where  no  very 
clear  explanation  of  this  kind  can  be  given,  it  is  a  thing 
in  which  different  nations  differ  greatly.  Few  good 
observers  will  deny  that  persistent  and  concentrated 
will  is  more  common  in  Great  Britain  than  in  Ireland, 
but  that  the  gift  of  a  buoyant  temperament  is  more 
common  among  Irishmen  than  among  Englishmen.  Yet 
it  co-exists  in  the  national  character  with  a  strong  vein 


240  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

of  very  genuine  melancholy,  and  it  is  often  accompanied 
by  keen  sensitiveness  to  suffering.  This  combination  is 
a  very  common  one.  Every  one  who  has  often  stood  by  a 
deathbed  knows  how  frequently  it  will  be  found  that  the 
mourner  who  is  utterly  prostrated  by  grief,  and  whose 
tears  flow  in  torrents,  casts  off  her  grief  much  more 
completely  and  much  sooner  than  one  whose  tears  refuse 
to  flow  and  who  never  for  a  moment  loses  her  self- 
command. 

But  though  natural  temperament  enables  one  man  to 
do  without  effort  what  another  man  with  the  utmost 
effort  fails  to  accomplish,  there  are  some  available  reme- 
dies that  can  palliate  the  disease.  Society,  travel  and 
other  amusements  can  do  something,  and  such  words  as 
*  diversion  *  and  *  distraction '  embalm  the  truth  that  the 
chief  virtue  of  many  pleasures  is  to  divert  or  distract  our 
minds  from  painful  thoughts.  Pascal  considered  this  a 
sign  of  the  misery  and  the  baseness  of  our  nature,  and  he 
describes  as  a  deplorable  spectacle  a  man  who  rose  from 
his  bed  weighed  down  with  anxiety  and  grave  sorrow, 
and  who  could  for  a  time  forget  it  all  in  the  passionate 
excitement  of  the  chase.  But,  in  truth,  the  possession  of 
such  a  power — weak  and  transient  though  it  be — is  one  of 
the  great  alleviations  of  the  lot  of  man.  Eeligion,  with 
its  powerful  motives  and  its  wide  range  of  consolatory 
and  soothing  thoughts  and  images,  has  much  power  in 
this  sphere  when  it  does  not  take  a  morbid  form  and 
intensify  instead  of  alleviating  sorrow;  and  the  steady 
exercise  of  the  will  gives  us  some  real  and  increasing, 
though  imperfect,  control  over  the  current  of  our  feelings 
as  well  as  of  our  ideas. 

Often  the  power  of  dreaming  comes  to  our  aid.   When 
we  cannot  turn  from  some  painfully  pressing  thought  to 


INFLUENCE   OF  IMAGINATION   ON  LIFE  241 

serious  thinking  of  another  kind,  we  can  give  the  reins  to 
our  imaginations  and  soon  lose  ourselves  in  ideal  scenes. 
There  are  men  who  live  so  habitually  in  a  world  of 
imagination  that  it  becomes  to  them  a  second  life,  and 
their  strongest  temptations  and  their  keenest  pleasures 
belong  to  it.  To  them  *  common  life  seems  tapestried 
with  dreams.'  Not  unfrequently  they  derive  a  pleasure 
from  imagined  or  remembered  enjoyments  which  the 
realities  themselves  would  fail  to  give.  They  select  in 
imagination  certain  aspects  or  portions,  throw  others  into 
the  shade,  intensify  or  attenuate  impressions,  transform 
and  beautify  the  reality  of  things.  The  power  of  filling 
their  existence  with  happy  day-dreams  is  their  most  pre- 
cious luxury.  They  feel  the  full  force  of  the  pathetic 
lines  of  an  Irish  poet :  ^ 

Sweet  thoughts,  bright  dreams  my  comfort  be, 

I  have  no  joy  beside  ; 
Oh,  throng  around  and  be  to  me 

Power,  country,  fame  and  bride. 

To  train  this  side  of  our  nature  is  no  small  part  of 
the  management  of  character.  There  is  a  great  sphere 
of  happiness  and  misery  which  is  almost  or  altogether 
unconnected  with  surrounding  circumstances,  and  depends 
upon  the  thoughts,  images,  hopes  and  fears  on  which  our 
minds  are  chiefly  concentrated.  The  exercise  of  this 
form  of  imagination  has  often  a  great  influence  both 
intellectually  and  morally.  In  childhood,  as  every  teacher 
knows,  it  is  often  a  distracting  influence,  and  with  men 
also  it  is  sometimes  an  obstacle  to  concentrated  reasoning 
and  observation,  turning  the  mind  away  from  sober  and 
difficult  thought ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of  dreaming  which 
is  eminently  conducive  to  productive  thoughtc     It  enables 

'  Davis. 

B 


242  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

a  man  to  place  himself  so  completely  in  other  conditions  of 
thought  and  life  that  the  ideas  connected  with  those  con- 
ditions rise  spontaneously  in  the  mind.  A  true  and  vivid 
realisation  of  characters  and  circumstances  unlike  his 
own  is  acquired.  The  mere  fact  of  placing  himself  in 
other  circumstances  and  investing  himself  v^ith  imaginary 
powers  and  functions  sometimes  suggests  possible  reme- 
dies for  great  human  ills,  and  gives  clearer  views  of  the 
proportions,  difficulties  and  conditions  of  governments 
and  societies.  Much  discovery  in  science  has  been  due 
to  this  power  of  the  imagination  to  realise  conditions  that 
are  unseen,  and  the  habit  or  faculty  of  living  other  lives 
than  our  own  is  scarcely  less  valuable  to  the  historian, 
and  even  to  the  statesman,  than  to  the  poet  or  the 
novelist  or  the  dramatist.  It  gives  the  magic  touch 
which  changes  mere  lifeless  knowledge  into  realisation. 

Its  effect  upon  character  also  is  great  and  various. 
No  one  can  fail  to  recognise  the  depraving  influence  of  a 
corrupt  imagination  ;  and  the  corruption  may  spring,  not 
only  from  suggestions  from  without,  but  from  those 
which  rise  spontaneously  in  our  minds.  Nor  is  even  the 
imagination  which  is  wholly  pure  absolutely  without  its 
dangers.  It  is  a  well-known  law  of  our  nature  that  an 
excessive  indulgence  in  emotion  that  does  not  end  in 
action  tends  rather  to  deaden  than  to  stimulate  the 
moral  nerve.  It  has  been  often  noticed  that  the  exag- 
gerated sentimentality  which  sheds  passionate  tears  over 
the  fictitious  sorrows  of  a  novel  or  a  play  is  no  certain  sign 
of  a  benevolent  and  unselfish  nature,  and  is  quite  com- 
patible with  much  indifference  to  real  sorrows  and  much 
indisposition  to  make  efforts  for  their  alleviation.  It  is, 
however,  no  less  true,  as  Dugald  Stewart  says,  that  the 
apparent  coldness  and  selfishness  of  men  is  often  simply 


THE  AGE   OF  MYTHS  243 

due  to  a  want  of  that  kind  of  imagination  which  enables 
us  to  realise  sufferings  with  which  we  have  never  been 
brought  into  direct  contact,  and  that  once  this  power  of 
realisation  is  acquired,  the  coldness  is  speedily  dispelled. 
Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  in  the  management  of  thought, 
the  dream  power  often  plays  a  most  important  part  in 
alleviating  human  suffering;  illuminating  cheerless  and 
gloomy  lives,  and  breaking  the  chain  of  evil  or  distress- 
ing thoughts. 

The  immense  place  which  the  literature  of  fiction 
holds  in  the  world  shows  how  widely  some  measure  of  it 
is  diffused,  and  how  large  an  amount  of  time  and  talent 
is  devoted  to  its  cultivation.  It  is  probable,  however, 
that  it  is  really  stronger  in  the  earlier  and  uncultivated 
than  in  the  later  stages  of  humanity,  as  it  is  more  vivid 
in  childhood  and  in  youth  than  in  mature  life.  *  A  child,' 
as  an  American  writer  ^  has  well  said,  '  can  afford  to  sleep 
without  dreaming;  he  has  plenty  of  dreams  without 
sleep.'  The  childhood  of  the  world  is  also  eminently  an 
age  of  dreams.  There  are  stages  of  civilisation  in  which 
the  dream  world  blends  so  closely  with  the  world  of 
realities,  in  which  the  imagination  so  habitually  and  so 
spontaneously  transfigures  or  distorts,  that  men  become 
almost  incapable  of  distinguishing  between  the  real  and 
the  fictitious.  This  is  the  true  age  of  myths  and  legends ; 
and  there  are  strata  in  contemporary  society  in  which  some- 
thing of  the  same  conditions  are  reproduced.  *  To  those 
who  do  not  read  or  write  much,'  says  an  acute  observer, 
*  even  in  our  days,  dreams  are  much  more  real  than  to 
those  who  are  continually  exercising  the  imagination.  .  .  . 
Since  I  have  been  occupied  with  literature  my  dreams 
have  lost  all  vividness,  and  are  less  real  than  the  shadows 

>  Cable. 

B  2 


244  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

of  the  trees ;  they  do  not  deceive  me  even  in  my  sleep. 
At  every  hour  of  the  day  I  am  accustomed  to  call  up 
figures  at  will  before  my  eyes,  which  stand  out  well- 
defined  and  coloured  to  the  very  hue  of  their  faces.  .  .  . 
The  less  literary  a  people  the  more  they  believe  in  dreams  ; 
the  disappearance  of  superstition  is  not  due  to  the  culti- 
vation of  reason  or  the  spread  of  knowledge,  but  purely 
to  the  mechanical  effect  of  reading,  which  so  perpetually 
puts  figures  and  aerial  shapes  before  the  mental  gaze  that 
in  time  those  that  occur  naturally,  are  thought  no  more 
of  than  those  conjured  into  existence  by  a  book.  It  is 
in  far-away  country  places  where  people  read  very  little 
that  they  see  phantoms  and  consult  the  oracles  of  fate. 
Their  dreams  are  real.'  ^ 

The  last  point  I  would  notice  in  the  management  of 
character  is  the  importance  of  what  may  be  called  moral 
safety-valves.  One  of  the  most  fatal  mistakes  in  educa- 
tion is  the  attempt  which  is  so  often  made  by  the 
educator  to  impose  his  own  habits  and  tastes  on  natures 
that  are  essentially  different.  It  is  common  for  men  of 
lymphatic  temperaments,  of  studious,  saintly,  and  retiring 
tastes,  to  endeavour  to  force  a  high-spirited  young  man 
starting  in  life  into  their  own  mould — to  prescribe  for 
him  the  cast  of  tastes  and  pursuits  they  find  most  suited 
for  themselves,  forgetting  that  such  an  ideal  can  never 
satisfy  a  wholly  different  nature,  and  that  in  aiming  at 
it  a  kind  of  excellence  which  might  easily  have  been 
attained  is  missed.  This  is  one  of  the  evils  that  very 
frequently  arise  when  the  education  of  boys  after  an  early 
age  is  left  in  the  hands  of  women.  It  is  the  true  expla- 
nation of  the  fact,  which  has  so  often  been  noticed,  that 
children  of  clergymen,  or  at  least  children  educated  on 

'  Jefferies,  Field  and  Hedgerow,  p.  242. 


MORAL   SAFETY-VALVES  246 

a  rigidly  austere,  puritanical  systera,  so  often  go  con- 
spicuously to  the  bad.  Such  an  education,  imposed  on  a 
nature  that  is  unfit  for  it,  generally  begins  by  producing 
hypocrisy,  and  not  unfrequently  ends  by  a  violent 
reaction  into  vice.  There  is  no  greater  mistake  in 
education  than  to  associate  virtue  in  early  youth  with 
gloomy  colours  and  constant  restrictions,  and  few  people 
do  more  mischief  in  the  world  than  those  who  are  per- 
petually inventing  crimes.  In  circles  where  smoking,  or 
field  sports,  or  going  to  the  play,  or  reading  novels,  or 
indulging  in  any  boisterous  games  or  in  the  most  harmless 
Sunday  amusements  are  treated  as  if  they  were  grave 
moral  offences,  young  men  constantly  grow  up  who  end 
by  looking  on  grave  moral  offences  as  not  worse  than 
these  things.  They  lose  all  sense  of  proportion  and  per- 
spective in  morals,  and  those  who  are  always  straining  at 
gnats  are  often  peculiarly  apt  to  swallow  camels.  It  is 
quite  right  that  men  who  have  formed  for  themselves  an 
ideal  of  life  of  the  kind  that  I  have  described  should 
steadily  pursue  it,  but  it  is  another  thing  to  impose  it 
upon  others,  and  to  prescribe  it  as  of  general  application. 
By  teaching  as  absolutely  wrong  things  that  are  in  reality 
only  culpable  in  their  abuse  or  their  excess,  they  destroy 
the  habit  of  moderate  and  restrained  enjoyment,  and  a 
period  of  absolute  prohibition  is  often  followed  by  a  period 
of  unrestrained  license. 

The  truth  is  there  are  elements  in  human  nature 
which  many  moralists  might  wish  to  be  absent,  as  they 
are  very  easily  turned  in  the  direction  of  vice,  but  which 
at  the  same  time  are  inherent  in  our  being,  and  if  rightly 
understood  are  essential  elements  of  human  progress. 
The  love  of  excitement  and  adventure ;  the  fierce  com- 
bative instinct  that  delights  in  danger,  in  struggle,  and 


246  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

even  in  destruction ;  the  restless  ambition  that  seeks 
with  an  insatiable  longing  to  better  its  position  and  to 
climb  heights  that  are  yet  unsealed ;  the  craving  for  some 
enjoyment  which  not  merely  gives  pleasure  but  carries 
with  it  the  thrill  of  passion — all  this  lies  deep  in  human 
nature,  and  plays  a  great  part  in  that  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, in  that  harsh  and  painful  process  of  evolution  by 
which  civilisation  is  formed,  faculty  stimulated  to  its 
full  development,  and  human  progress  secured.  In  the 
education  of  the  individual  as  in  the  education  of  the 
race,  the  true  policy  in  dealing  with  these  things  is  to 
find  for  them  a  healthy,  useful,  or  at  least  harmless 
sphere  of  action.  In  the  chemistry  of  character  they 
may  ally  themselves  with  the  most  heroic  as  well  as  with 
the  worst  parts  of  our  nature,  and  the  same  passion  for 
excitement  which  in  one  man  will  take  the  form  of 
ruinous  vice,  in  another  may  lead  to  brilliant  enterprise, 
while  in  a  third  it  may  be  turned  with  no  great  difficulty 
into  channels  which  are  verj^  innocent. 

Take,  for  example,  the  case  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  of  a  perfectly  commonplace  boy  who,  on  coming 
of  age,  finds  himself  with  a  competence  that  saves  him 
from  the  necessity  of  work  ;  and  who  has  no  ambition, 
literary  or  artistic  taste,  love  of  work,  interest  in  politics, 
religious  or  philanthropic  earnestness,  or  special  talent. 
What  will  become  of  him  ?  In  probably  the  majority  of 
cases  ruin,  disease,  and  an  early  death  lie  before  him. 
He  seeks  only  for  amusement  and  excitement,  and  three 
fatal  temptations  await  him — drink,  gambling,  and 
women.  If  he  falls  under  the  dominion  of  these,  or  even 
of  one  of  them,  he  almost  infallibly  wrecks  either  his 
fortune,  his  constitution,  or  both.  It  is  perfectly  useless 
to  set  before  him  high  motives  or  ideals,  or  to  incite  him 


CPIARACTER  OF  THE  ENGLISH   GENTLEMAN       247 

to  lines  of  life  for  which  he  has  no  aptitude,  and  which 
can  give  him  no  pleasure.  What  then  can  save  him  ? 
Most  frequently  a  happy  marriage  ;  but  even  if  he  is 
fortunate  enough  to  attain  this,  it  will  probably  only  be 
after  several  years,  and  in  those  years  a  fatal  bias  is 
likely  to  be  given  to  his  life  which  can  never  be  recovered. 
Yet  experience  shows  that  in  cases  of  this  kind  a  keen 
love  of  sport  can  often  do  much.  With  his  gun  and  with 
his  hunter  he  finds  an  interest,  an  excitement,  an  employ- 
ment which  may  not  be  particularly  noble,  but  which  is 
at  least  sufficiently  absorbing,  and  is  not  injurious  either 
to  his  morals,  his  health,  or  his  fortune.  It  is  no  small 
gain  if  in  the  competition  of  pleasures,  country  pleasures 
take  the  place  of  those  town  pleasures  which,  in  such 
cases  as  I  have  described,  usually  mean  pleasures  of 
vice. 

Nor  is  it  by  any  means  only  in  such  cases  that  field 
sports  prove  a  great  moral  safety-valve  scattering  morbid 
tastes,  and  giving  harmless  and  healthy  vent  to  turns  of 
character  or  feeling  which  might  very  easily  be  converted 
into  vice.  Among  the  influences  that  form  the  character 
of  the  upper  classes  of  Englishmen  they  have  a  great  part, 
and  in  spite  of  the  exaggerations  and  extravagances  that 
often  accompany  them,  few  good  observers  will  doubt 
that  they  have  an  influence  for  good.  However  much  of 
the  Philistine  element  there  may  be  in  the  upper  classes 
in  England ;  however  manifest  may  be  their  limitations 
and  their  defects,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  on  the 
whole  the  conditions  of  English  life  have  in  this  sphere 
proved  successful.  There  are  few  better  working  types 
within  the  reach  of  commonplace  men  than  that  of  an 
English  gentleman  with  his  conventional  tastes,  standard 
of    honour,   religion,   sympathies,    ideals,   opinions    and 


248  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

instincts.  He  is  not  likely  to  be  either  a  saint  or  a 
philosopher,  but  he  is  tolerably  sure  to  be  both  an  honour- 
able and  a  useful  man,  with  a  fair  measure  of  good  sense 
and  moderation,  and  with  some  disposition  towards  public 
duties.  A  crowd  of  out-of-door  amusements  and  interests 
do  much  to  dispel  his  peccant  humours  and  to  save  him 
from  the  stagnation  and  the  sensuality  that  have  beset 
many  foreign  aristocracies.  County  business  stimulates 
his  activity ;  mitigates  his  class  prejudices  and  forms  his 
judgment :  and  his  standard  of  honour  will  keep  him  sub- 
stantially right  amid  much  fluctuation  of  opinions. 

The  reader,  from  his  own  experience  of  individual 
characters,  will  supply  other  illustrations  of  the  lines 
of  thought  I  am  enforcing.  Some  temptations  that  beset 
us  must  be  steadily  faced  and  subdued.  Others  are  best 
met  by  flight — by  avoiding  the  thoughts  or  scenes  that 
call  them  into  activity ;  while  other  elements  of  character 
which  we  might  wish  to  be  away  are  often  better  treated 
in  the  way  of  marriage,  that  is  by  a  judicious  regulation 
and  harmless  application,  than  in  the  way  of  asceticism 
or  attempted  suppression.  It  is  possible  for  men,  if  not 
in  educating  themselves  at  least  in  educating  others,  to 
pitch  their  standard  and  their  ideal  too  high.  What  they 
have  to  do  is  to  recognise  their  own  qualities  and  the 
qualities  of  those  whom  they  influence  as  they  are,  and 
endeavour  to  use  these  usually  very  imperfect  materials 
to  the  best  advantage,  for  the  formation  of  useful,  honour- 
able and  happy  lives.  According  to  the  doctrine  of  this 
book,  man  comes  into  the  world  with  a  free  will.  But 
his  free  will,  though  a  real  thing,  acts  in  a  narrower  circle 
and  with  more  numerous  limitations  than  he  usually 
imagines.  He  can,  however,  do  much  so  to  dispose, 
regulate  and  modify  the  circumstances  of  his  life  as  to 


OUR  POWER  OVER  OURSELVES  249 

diminish  both  his  sufferings  and  his  temptations,  and  to 
secure  for  himself  the  external  conditions  of  a  happy  and 
upright  life,  and  he  can  do  something  by  judicious  and 
persevering  self-culture  to  improve  those  conditions  of 
character  on  which  more  than  on  any  external  circum- 
stances both  happiness  and  virtue  depend. 


250  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTEK  XIII 

MONEY 

I  DO  not  think  that  I  can  better  introduce  the  few  pages 
which  I  propose  to  write  on  the  relations  of  money  to 
happiness  and  to  character  than  by  a  pregnant  passage 
from  one  of  the  essays  ^  of  Sir  Henry  Taylor.  *  So 
manifold  are  the  bearings  of  money  upon  the  lives  and 
characters  of  mankind,  that  an  insight  which  should  search 
out  the  life  of  a  man  in  his  pecuniary  relations  would 
penetrate  into  almost  every  cranny  of  his  nature.  He 
who  knows  like  St.  Paul  both  how  to  spare  and  how  to 
abound  has  a  great  knowledge ;  for  if  we  take  account  of 
all  the  virtues  with  which  money  is  mixed  up — honesty, 
justice,  generosity,  charity,  frugality,  forethought,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  of  their  correlative  vices,  it  is  a  knowledge 
which  goes  near  to  cover  the  length  and  breadth  of 
humanity,  and  a  right  measure  in  getting,  saving, 
spending,  giving,  taking,  lending,  borrowing  and  bequeath- 
ing would  almost  argue  a  perfect  man.' 

There  are  few  subjects  on  which  the  contrast  between 
the  professed  and  the  real  beliefs  of  men  is  greater  than 
in  the  estimate  of  money.  More  than  any  other  single 
thing  it  is  the  object  and  usually  the  life-long  object  of 
human  effort,  and  any  accession  of  wealth  is  hailed  by 
the  immense  majority  of  mankind  as  an  unquestionable 
blessing.     Yet  if  we  were  to  take  literally  much  of  the 

*  Notes  on  Life. 


RELATIONS  OF  MONEY  TO   HAPPINESS  261 

teaching  we  have  all  heard  we  should  conclude  that 
money,  beyond  what  is  required  for  the  necessaries  of 
life,  is  far  more  a  danger  than  a  good ;  that  it  is  the  pre- 
eminent source  of  evil  and  temptation ;  that  one  of  the 
first  duties  of  man  is  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  love 
of  it,  which  can  only  mean  from  any  strong  desire  for  its 
increase. 

In  this,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  the  question  is 
largely  one  of  degree.  No  one  who  knows  what  is  meant 
by  the  abject  poverty  to  which  a  great  proportion  of  the 
human  race  is  condemned  will  doubt  that  at  least  such 
an  amount  of  money  as  raises  them  from  this  condition 
is  one  of  the  greatest  of  human  blessings.  Extreme 
poverty  means  a  lifelong  struggle  for  the  bare  means  of 
living  ;  it  means  a  life  spent  in  wretched  hovels,  with 
insufficient  food,  clothes  and  firing,  in  enforced  and 
absolute  ignorance  ;  an  existence  almost  purely  animal, 
with  nearly  all  the  higher  faculties  of  man  undeveloped. 
There  is  a  far  greater  real  difference  in  the  material  ele- 
ments of  happiness  between  the  condition  of  such  men  and 
that  of  a  moderately  prosperous  artizanin  a  civilised  country 
than  there  is  between  the  latter  and  the  millionaire. 

Money,  again,  at  least  to  such  an  amount  as  enables 
men  to  be  in  some  considerable  degree  masters  of  their 
own  course  in  life,  is  also  on  the  whole  a  great  good.  In 
this  second  degree  it  has  less  influence  on  happiness  than 
health,  and  probably  than  character  and  domestic  relations, 
but  its  influence  is  at  least  very  great.  Money  is  a  good 
thing  because  it  can  be  transformed  into  many  other 
things.  It  gives  the  power  of  education  which  in  itself 
does  much  to  regulate  the  character  and  opens  out 
countless  tastes  and  spheres  of  enjoyment.  It  saves  its 
possessor  from  the  fear  of  a  destitute  old  age  and  of  the 


252  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

destitution  of  those  he  may  leave  behind,  which  is  the 
harrowing  care  of  multitudes  who  cannot  be  reckoned 
among  the  very  poor.  It  enables  him  to  intermit  labour 
in  times  of  sickness  and  sorrow  and  old  age,  and  in  those 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold  during  which  active  labour  is 
little  less  than  physical  pain.  It  gives  him  and  it  gives 
those  he  loves  increased  chances  of  life  and  increased  hope 
of  recovery  in  sickness.  Few  of  the  pains  of  penury  are 
more  acute  than  those  of  a  poor  man  who  sees  his  wife 
or  children  withering  away  through  disease,  and  who 
knows  or  believes  that  better  food  or  medical  attendance, 
or  a  surgical  operation,  or  a  change  of  climate,  might  have 
saved  them.  Money,  too,  even  when  it  does  not  dispense 
with  work,  at  least  gives  a  choice  of  work  and  longer 
intervals  of  leisure.  For  the  very  poor  this  choice  hardly 
exists,  or  exists  only  within  very  narrow  hmits,  and  from 
want  of  culture  or  want  of  leisure  some  of  their  most 
marked  natural  aptitudes  are  never  called  into  exercise. 
With  the  comparatively  rich  this  is  not  the  case.  Money 
enables  them  to  select  the  course  of  life  which  is  congenial 
to  their  tastes  and  most  suited  to  their  natural  talents,  or 
if  their  strongest  taste  cannot  become  their  work,  money 
at  least  gives  them  some  leisure  to  cultivate  it.  The 
command  of  leisure,  when  it  is  fruitful  leisure  spent  in 
congenial  work,  is  to  many,  perhaps,  the  greatest  boon 
it  can  bestow.  *  Eiches,'  said  Charles  Lamb,  '  are  chiefly 
good  because  they  give  us  Time.'  *  All  one's  time  to 
oneself  !  for  which  alone  I  rankle  with  envy  at  the  rich. 
Books  are  good  and  pictures  are  good,  and  money  to  buy 
them  is  therefore  good — but  to  buy  time — in  other  words, 
life!' 

To  some  men  money  is  chiefly  valuable  because  it 
makes  it  possible   for  them    not   to   think   of    money. 


RELATIONS   OF   MONEY   TO   HAPPINESS  253 

Except  in  the  daily  regulation  of  ordinary  life,  it  enables 
them  to  put  aside  cares  which  are  to  them  both  harassing 
and  distasteful,  and  to  concentrate  their  thoughts  and 
energies  on  other  objects.  An  assured  competence  also, 
however  moderate,  gives  men  the  priceless  blessing  of 
independence.  There  are  walks  of  life,  there  are  fields 
of  ambition,  there  are  classes  of  employments  in  which 
between  inadequate  remuneration  and  the  pressure  of 
want  on  the  one  side,  and  the  facilities  and  temptations 
to  illicit  gain  on  the  other,  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  a 
poor  man  to  walk  straight.  Illicit  gain  does  not  merely 
mean  gain  that  brings  a  man  within  the  range  of  the 
criminal  law.  Many  of  its  forms  escape  legal  and  perhaps 
social  censure,  and  may  be  even  sanctioned  by  custom. 
A  competence,  whether  small  or  large,  is  no  sure  preser- 
vative against  that  appetite  for  gain  which  becomes  one 
of  the  most  powerful  and  insatiable  of  passions.  But  it 
at  least  diminishes  temptation.  It  takes  away  the  pres- 
sure of  want  under  which  so  many  natures  that  were 
once  substantially  honest  have  broken  down. 

In  the  expenditure  of  money  there  is  usually  a  great 
deal  of  the  conventional,  the  factitious,  the  purely  osten- 
tatious, but  we  are  here  dealing  with  the  most  serious 
realities  of  life.  There  are  few  or  no  elements  of  happi- 
ness and  character  more  important  than  those  I  have 
indicated,  and  a  small  competence  conduces  powerfully 
to  them.  Let  no  man  therefore  despise  it,  for  if  wisely 
used,  it  is  one  of  the  most  real  blessings  of  life.  It  is  of 
course  only  within  the  reach  of  a  small  minority,  but  the 
number  might  easily  be  much  larger  than  it  is.  Often 
when  it  is  inherited  in  early  youth,  it  is  scattered  in  one 
or  two  years  of  gambling  and  dissipation,  followed  by  a 
hfetime  of  regret.     In  other  cases  it  crumbles  away  in  a 


254  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

generation,  for  it  is  made  an  excuse  for  a  life  of  idleness, 
and  when  children  multiply  or  misfortunes  arrive,  what 
was  once  a  competence  becomes  nothing  more  than  bare 
necessity.  In  a  still  larger  number  of  cases,  many  of 
its  advantages  are  lost  because  men  at  once  adopt  a  scale 
of  living  fully  equal  to  their  income.  A  man  who  with 
one  house  would  be  a  wealthy  man,  finds  life  with  two 
houses  a  constant  struggle.  A  set  of  habits  is  acquired, 
a  scale  or  standard  of  luxury  is  adopted,  which  at  once 
sweeps  away  the  margin  of  superfluity.  Eiches  or  poverty 
depend  not  merely  on  the  amount  of  our  possessions,  but 
quite  as  much  on  the  regulation  of  our  desires,  and  the 
full  advantages  of  competence  are  only  felt  when  men 
begin  by  settling  their  scheme  of  life  on  a  scale  materi- 
ally within  their  income.  "When  the  great  lines  of  ex- 
penditure are  thus  wisely  and  frugally  established,  they 
can  command  a  wide  latitude  and  much  ease  in  dealing 
with  the  smaller  ones. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  the  power  of  a  man  thus  to 
regulate  his  expenditure  is  by  no  means  absolute.  The 
position  in  society  in  which  a  man  is  born  brings  with  it 
certain  conventionalities  and  obligations  that  cannot  be 
discarded.  A  great  nobleman  who  has  inherited  a  vast 
estate  and  a  conspicuous  social  position  will,  through  no 
fault  of  his  own,  find  himself  involved  in  constant  diffi- 
culties and  struggles,  on  an  income  a  tenth  part  of  which 
would  suffice  to  give  a  simple  private  gentleman  every 
reasonable  enjoyment  in  life.  A  poor  clergyman  who  is 
obliged  to  keep  up  the  position  of  a  gentleman  is  in 
reality  a  much  poorer  man  than  a  prosperous  artizan, 
even  though  his  actual  income  may  be  somewhat  larger. 
But  within  the  bounds  which  the  conventionalities  of 
society  imperatively  prescribe  many  scales  of  expenditure 


RELATIONS  OF  MONEY  TO   HAPPINESS  256 

are  possible,  and  the  wise  regulation  of  these  is  one  of 
the  chief  forms  of  practical  wisdom. 

It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  not  only  men  but 
nations  differ  widely  in  this  respect,  and  the  difference  is 
not  merely  that  between  prudence  and  folly,  between 
forethought  and  passion,  but  is  also  in  a  large  degree 
a  difference  of  tastes  and  ideals.  In  general,  it  will  be 
found  that  in  Continental  nations,  a  man  of  independent 
fortune  will  place  his  expenditure  more  below  his  means 
than  in  England,  and  a  man  who  has  pm^sued  some 
lucrative  employment  will  sooner  be  satisfied  with  the 
competence  he  has  acquired,  and  will  gladly  exchange  his 
work  for  a  Hfe  of  leisure.  The  English  character  prefers 
a  higher  rate  of  expenditure,  and  work  continued  to 
the  end. 

It  is  probable  that,  as  far  as  happiness  depends  on 
money,  the  happiest  lot — though  it  is  certainly  not  that 
which  is  most  envied — is  that  of  a  man  who  possesses 
a  realised  fortune  sufficient  to  save  him  from  serious 
money  cares  about  the  present  and  the  future,  but  who 
at  the  same  time  can  only  keep  up  the  position  in  society 
he  has  chosen  for  himself,  and  provide  as  he  desires  for 
his  children,  by  adding  to  it  a  professional  income.  Work 
is  necessary  both  to  happiness  and  to  character,  and 
experience  shows  that  it  most  frequently  attains  its  full 
concentration  and  continuity  when  it  is  professional,  or, 
in  other  words,  money-making.  Men  work  in  traces 
as  they  will  seldom  work  at  liberty.  The  compulsory 
character,  the  steady  habits,  the  constant  emulation  of 
professional  life  moulds  and  strengthens  the  will,  and 
probably  the  happiest  lot  is  when  this  kind  of  work 
exists,  but  without  the  anxiety  of  those  who  depend 
solely  on  it. 


256  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

It  is  also  a  good  thing  when  wealth  tends  to  in- 
crease with  age.  *  Old  age,'  it  has  been  said,  '  is  a 
very  expensive  thing.'  If  the  taste  for  pleasure  dimi- 
nishes, the  necessity  for  comfort  increases.  Men  become 
more  dependent  and  more  fastidious,  and  hardships  that 
are  indifferent  to  youth  become  acutely  painful.  Beside 
this,  money  cares  are  apt  to  weigh  with  an  especial 
heaviness  upon  the  old.  Avarice,  as  has  been  often  ob- 
served, is  eminently  an  old-age  vice,  and  in  natures  that 
are  in  no  degree  avaricious,  it  will  be  found  that  real 
money  anxieties  are  more  felt,  and  have  a  greater  haunt- 
ing power  in  age  than  in  youth.  There  is  then  the  sense 
of  impotence  which  makes  men  feel  that  their  earning 
power  has  gone.  On  the  other  hand  youth,  and  especially 
early  married  life  spent  under  the  pressure  of  narrow 
circumstances,  will  often  be  looked  back  upon  as  both  the 
happiest  and  the  most  fruitful  period  of  life.  It  is  the  best 
discipline  of  character.  It  is  under  such  circumstances 
that  men  acquire  habits  of  hard  and  steady  work,  frugality, 
order,  forethought,  punctuality,  and  simplicity  of  tastes. 
They  acquire  sympathies  and  realisations  they  would 
never  have  known  in  more  prosperous  circumstances. 
They  learn  to  take  keen  pleasure  in  little  things,  and  to 
value  rightly  both  money  and  time.  If  wealth  and  luxury 
afterwards  come  in  overflowing  measure,  these  lessons 
will  not  be  wholly  lost. 

The  value  of  money  as  an  element  of  happiness 
diminishes  rapidly  in  proportion  to  its  amount.  In  the 
case  of  the  humbler  fortunes,  each  accession  brings  with 
it  a  large  increase  of  pleasure  and  comfort,  and  probably 
a  very  considerable  addition  to  real  happiness.  In  the 
case  of  rich  men  this  is  not  the  case,  and  of  colossal 
fortunes  only  a  very  small  fraction  can  be  truly  said  to 


THE   COST  OF  PLEASFREIS  267 

minister  to  the  personal  enjoyment  of  the  owner.  The 
disproportion  in  the  world  between  pleasure  and  cost  is 
indeed  almost  ludicrous.  The  two  or  three  shillings  that 
gave  us  our  first  Shakespeare  would  go  but  a  small  way 
towards  providing  one  of  the  perhaps  untasted  dishes  on 
the  dessert  table.  The  choicest  masterpieces  of  the  human 
mind — the  works  of  human  genius  that  through  the  long 
course  of  centuries  have  done  most  to  ennoble,  console, 
brighten,  and  direct  the  lives  of  men,  might  all  be  purchased 
— I  do  not  say  by  the  cost  of  a  lady's  necklace,  but  by  that 
of  one  or  two  of  the  little  stones  of  which  it  is  composed. 
Compare  the  relish  with  which  the  tired  pedestrian  eats  his 
bread  and  cheese  with  the  appetites  with  which  men  sit 
down  to  some  stately  banquet ;  compare  the  level  of  spirits 
at  the  village  dance  with  that  of  the  great  city  ball  whose 
lavish  splendour  fills  the  society  papers  with  admiration — 
compare  the  charm  of  conversation  in  the  college  common 
room  with  the  weary  faces  that  may  be  often  seen  around 
the  millionaire's  dinner  table,  and  we  may  gain  a  good 
lesson  of  the  vanity  of  riches.  The  transition  from  want 
to  comfort  brings  with  it  keen  enjoyment  and  much  last- 
ing happiness.  The  transition  from  mere  comfort  to 
luxury  brings  incomparably  less  and  costs  incomparably 
more.  Let  a  man  of  enormous  wealth  analyse  his  life 
from  day  to  day  and  try  to  estimate  what  are  the  things 
or  hours  that  have  afforded  him  real  and  vivid  pleasure. 
In  many  cases  he  will  probably  say  that  he  has  found  it 
in  his  work — in  others  in  the  hour  spent  with  his  cigar, 
his  newspaper,  or  his  book,  or  in  his  game  of  cricket,  or 
in  the  excitement  of  the  hunting-field,  or  in  his  conversa- 
tion with  an  old  friend,  or  in  hearing  his  daughters  sing, 
or  in  welcoming  his  son  on  his  return  from  school. 
Let  him  look  round  the  splendid  adornments  of  his  home 

s 


258  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

and  ask  how  many  of  these  things  have  ever  given  him  a 
pleasure  at  all  proportionate  to  their  cost.  Probably  in 
many  cases,  if  he  deals  honestly  with  himself,  he  would 
confess  that  his  armchair,  and  his  book-shelves,  are  almost 
the  only  exceptions. 

Steam,  the  printing  press,  the  spread  of  education, 
and  the  great  multiplication  of  public  libraries,  museums, 
picture  galleries  and  exhibitions  have  brought  the  chief 
pleasures  of  life  in  a  much  larger  degree  than  in  any  pre- 
vious age  within  the  reach  of  what  are  called  the  working 
classes,  while  in  the  conditions  of  modern  life  nearly  all 
the  great  sources  of  real  enjoyment  that  money  can  give 
are  open  to  a  man  who  possesses  a  competent  but  not 
extraordinary  fortune  and  some  leisure.  Intellectual 
tastes  he  may  gratify  to  the  full.  Books,  at  all  events  in 
the  great  centres  of  civilisation,  are  accessible  far  in 
excess  of  his  powers  of  reading.  The  pleasures  of  the 
theatre,  the  pleasures  of  society,  the  pleasures  of  music  in 
most  of  its  forms,  the  pleasures  of  travel  with  all  its 
variety  of  interests,  and  many  of  the  pleasures  of  sport 
are  abundantly  at  his  disposal.  The  possession  of  the 
highest  works  of  art  has  no  doubt  become  more  and 
more  a  monopoly  of  the  very  rich,  but  picture  galleries 
and  exhibitions  and  the  facilities  of  travel  have  diffused 
the  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of  art  over  a  vastly  wider 
area  than  in  the  past.  The  power  of  reproducing  works 
of  art  has  been  immensely  increased  and  cheapened,  and 
in  one  form  at  least  the  highest  art  has  been  brought 
within  the  reach  of  a  man  of  very  moderate  means. 
Photography  can  reproduce  a  drawing  with  such  absolute 
perfection  that  he  may  cover  his  walls  with  works 
of  Michael  Angelo  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  that  are 
indistinguishable  from  the  originals.     The   standard   of 


THE  COST  OF  PLEASUEES  259 

)mfort  in  mere  material  things  is  now  so  high  in  well- 
[io-do  households  that  to  a  healthy  nature  the  millionaire 
can  add  little  to  it.  Perhaps  among  the  pleasures  of 
wealth  that  which  has  the  strongest  influence  is  a  country- 
place,  especially  when  it  brings  with  it  old  remembrances, 
and  associations  that  appeal  powerfully  to  the  affections 
and  the  imagination.  More  than  any  other  inanimate  thing 
it  throws  its  tendrils  round  the  human  heart  and  becomes 
the  object  of  a  deep  and  lasting  affection.  But  even  here 
it  will  be  probably  found  that  this  pleasure  is  more  felt 
by  the  owner  of  one  country  place  than  by  the  great 
proprietor  whose  life  is  spent  alternately  in  several— by 
the  owner  of  a  place  of  moderate  dimensions  than  by  the 
owner  of  those  vast  parks  which  can  only  be  managed 
at  great  expense  and  trouble  and  by  much  delegated 
supervision,  and  which  are  usually  thrown  open  with 
such  liberality  to  the  public  that  they  probably  give  more 
real  pleasure  to  others  than  to  their  owners. 

Among  the  special  pleasures  of  the  enormously  rich 
the  collecting  passion  is  conspicuous,  and  of  course  a  very 
rich  man  can  carry  it  into  departments  which  men  of 
moderate  fortune  can  hardly  touch.  In  the  rare  case 
when  the  collector  is  a  man  of  strong  and  genuine  artistic 
taste  the  possession  of  works  of  beauty  is  a  thing  of 
enduring  pleasure,  but  in  general  the  mere  love  of  collect- 
ing, though  it  often  becomes  a  passion  almost  amounting 
to  a  mania,  bears  very  little  proportion  to  pecuniary  value. 
The  intelligent  collector  of  fossils  has  as  much  pleasure 
as  the  collector  of  gems — probably  indeed  more,  as  the 
former  pursuit  brings  with  it  a  much  greater  variety  of 
interest,  and  usually  depends  much  more  on  the  personal 
exertions  of  the  collector.  It  is  pleasant  in  looking  over  a 
geological  collection  to  think  that  every  stone  we  see  has 

8  2 


260  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

given  a  pleasure.  A  collector  of  Caxtons,  a  collector  of 
large  printed  or  illustrated  editions,  a  collector  of  first 
editions  of  famous  books,  a  collector  of  those  editions  that 
are  so  much  prized  because  an  author  has  made  in  them 
some  blunder  which  he  afterwards  corrected ;  a  collector 
of  those  unique  books  which  have  survived  as  rarities 
because  no  one  thought  it  worth  while  to  reprint  them  or 
because  they  are  distinguished  by  some  obsolete  absurdity 
will  probably  not  derive  more  pleasure,  though  he  will 
spend  vastly  more  money  than  the  mere  literary  man 
who,  being  interested  in  some  particular  period  or  topic, 
loves  to  hunt  up  in  old  bookshops  the  obscure  and 
forgotten  literature  relating  to  it.  Much  the  same  thing 
may  be  said  of  other  tastes.  The  gratification  of  a  strong 
taste  or  hobby  will  always  give  pleasure  and  it  makes 
little  difference  whether  it  is  an  expensive  or  an  in- 
expensive one. 

The  pleasures  of  acquisition,  the  pleasures  of  posses- 
sion, and  the  pleasures  of  ostentation,  are  no  doubt  real 
things,  though  they  act  in  very  different  degrees  on 
different  natures,  and  some  of  them  much  more  on  one 
sex  than  on  the  other.  In  general,  however,  they  tend  to 
grow  passive  and  inert.  A  state  of  luxury  and  splendour 
is  little  appreciated  by  those  who  are  born  to  it,  though 
much  if  it  follows  a  period  of  struggle  and  penury.  Yet 
even  then  the  circumstances  and  surroundings  of  life  soon 
become  a  second  nature.  Men  become  so  habituated  to 
them  that  they  are  accepted  almost  mechanically  and 
cease  to  give  positive  pleasure,  though  a  deprivation  of 
them  gives  positive  pain.  The  love  of  power,  the  love 
of  society,  and — what  is  not  quite  the  same  thing — the 
love  of  social  influence  are,  however,  much  stronger 
and  more  enduring,  and  great  wealth  is  largely  valued 


THE   RATIONAI^  OF  BOHEMIANISM  261 

because  it  helps  to  give  them,  though  it  does  not  give 
them  invariably,  and  though  there  are  other  things  that 
give  them  in  an  equal  or  greater  degree.  To  many  very 
rich  men  some  form  of  field  sports  is  probably  the 
greatest  pleasure  that  money  affords.  It  at  least  gives  a 
genuine  thrill  of  unmistakable  enjoyment. 

Few  of  the  special  pleasures  of  the  millionaire  can  be 
said  to  be  purely  selfish,  for  few  are  concentrated  alto- 
gether on  himself.  His  great  park  is  usually  open  to  the 
public.  His  pictures  are  lent  for  exhibition  or  exhibited 
in  his  house.  If  he  keeps  a  pack  of  hounds  others  hunt 
with  it.  If  he  preserves  game  to  an  enormous  extent  he 
invites  many  to  shoot  it,  and  at  his  great  entertainments 
it  will  often  be  found  that  no  one  derives  less  pleasure 
than  the  weary  host. 

At  the  same  time  no  thinking  man  can  fail  to  be 
struck  with  the  great  waste  of  the  means  of  enjoyment 
in  a  society  in  which  such  gigantic  sums  are  spent  in  mere 
conventional  ostentation  which  gives  little  or  no  pleasure  ; 
in  which  the  best  London  houses  are  those  which  are  the 
longest  untenanted  ;  in  which  some  of  the  most  enchanting 
gardens  and  parks  are  only  seen  by  their  owners  for  a 
few  weeks  in  the  year. 

Hamerton,  in  his  Essay  on  Bohemianism,  has  verj^ 
truly  shown  that  the  rationale  of  a  great  deal  of  this  is 
simply  the  attempt  of  men  to  obtain  from  social  inter- 
course the  largest  amount  of  positive  pleasure  or  amuse- 
ment it  can  give  by  discarding  the  forms,  the  costly 
conventionalities,  the  social  restrictions  that  encumber 
and  limit  it.  One  of  the  worst  tendencies  of  a  very 
wealthy  society  is  that  by  the  mere  competition  of  osten- 
tation the  standard  of  conventional  expense  is  raised, 
and  the  intercourse  of  men  limited  by  the  introduction  of 


262  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

a  number  of  new  and  costly  luxuries  which  either  give  no 
pleasure  or  give  pleasure  that  bears  no  kind  of  proportion 
to  their  cost.  Examples  may  sometimes  be  seen  of  a 
very  rich  man  who  imagines  that  he  can  obtain  from 
life  real  enjoyment  in  proportion  to  his  wealth  and  who 
uses  it  for  purely  selfish  purposes.  We  may  find  this  in 
the  almost  insane  extravagance  of  vulgar  ostentation  by 
which  the  parvenu  millionaire  tries  to  gratify  his  vanity 
and  dazzle  his  neighbours  ;  in  the  wild  round  of  prodigal 
dissipation  and  vice  by  which  so  many  young  men  who 
have  inherited  enormous  fortunes  have  wrecked  their 
constitutions  and  found  a  speedy  path  to  an  unhonoured 
grave.  They  sought  from  money  what  money  cannot 
give,  and  learned  too  late  that  in  pursuing  shadows  they 
missed  the  substance  that  was  within  their  reach. 

To  the  intelligent  millionaire,  however,  and  especially 
to  those  who  are  brought  up  to  great  possessions,  w^ealth 
is  looked  on  in  a  wholly  different  light.  It  is  a  possession 
and  a  trust  carrying  with  it  many  duties  as  well  as  many 
interests  and  accompanied  by  a  great  burden  of  responsi- 
bility. Mere  pleasure-hunting  plays  but  a  small  and 
wholly  subsidiary  part  in  such  lives,  and  they  are  usually 
filled  with  much  useful  work.  This  man,  for  example,  is 
a  banker  on  a  colossal  scale.  Follow  his  life  and  you  will 
find  that  for  four  days  in  the  week  he  is  engaged  in  his 
office  as  steadily,  as  unremittingly  as  any  clerk  in  his 
establishment.  He  has  made  himself  master  not  only  of 
the  details  of  his  own  gigantic  business  but  of  the  whole 
great  subject  of  finance  in  all  its  international  relations. 
He  is  a  power  in  many  lands.  He  is  consulted  in  every 
crisis  of  finance.  He  is  an  important  influence  in  a  crowd 
of  enterprises,  most  of  them  useful  as  well  as  lucrative, 
some  of  them  distinctively  philanthropic.     Saturday  and 


THE   INTELLIGENT  MILLIONAIRE  263 

Sunday  he  spends  at  his  country  place,  usually  entertain- 
ing a  number  of  guests.  One  other  day  during  the 
hunting  season  be  regularly  devotes  to  his  favourite 
sport.  His  holiday  is  the  usual  holiday  of  a  professional 
man,  v^^ith  rather  a  tendency  to  abridge  than  to  lengthen 
it,  as  the  natural  bent  of  his  thoughts  is  so  strongly  to  his 
work  that  time  soon  begins  to  hang  heavily  when  he  is 
away  from  it. 

Another  man  is  an  ardent  philanthropist  and  his 
philanthropy  probably  blends  with  much  religious  fervour, 
and  he  becomes  in  consequence  a  leader  in  the  religious 
world.  Such  a  life  cannot  fail  to  be  abundantly  filled. 
Eeligious  meetings,  committees,  the  various  interests  of 
the  many  institutions  with  which  he  is  connected,  the 
conflicting  and  competing  claims  of  different  religious 
societies  fully  occupy  his  time  and  thoughts,  sometimes 
to  the  great  neglect  of  his  private  affairs. 

Another  man  is  of  a  different  type.  Shy,  retiring, 
hating  publicity  and  not  much  interested  in  politics,  he  is 
a  gigantic  landowner,  and  the  work  of  his  life  is  concen- 
trated on  the  development  of  his  own  estate.  He  knows 
the  circumstances  of  every  village,  almost  of  every  farm. 
It  is  his  pride  that  no  labourer  on  his  estate  is  badly 
housed,  that  no  part  of  it  is  slovenly  or  mismanaged  or 
poverty-stricken.  He  endows  churches  and  hospitals,  he 
erects  public  buildings,  encourages  every  local  industry, 
makes  in  times  of  distress  much  larger  remissions  of  rent 
than  would  be  possible  for  a  poorer  man,  superintends 
personally  the  many  interests  on  his  property,  knows 
accurately  the  balance  of  receipts  and  expenditure,  takes 
a  great  interest  in  sanitation,  in  new  improvements  and 
experiments  in  agriculture,  in  all  the  multifarious  matters 
that  affect  the  prosperity  of  his  numerous  tenantry.     He 


264 


THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 


subscribes  liberally  to  great  national  undertakings  as  he 
considers  it  one  of  the  duties  of  his  position,  but  his  heart 
is  not  in  such  things,  and  the  well-being  of  his  own  vast 
estate  and  of  those  who  live  upon  it  is  the  aim  and  the 
work  of  his  life.  For  a  few  weeks  of  the  year  he  exercises 
the  splendid  and  lavish  hospitality  which  is  expected  from 
a  man  in  his  position,  and  he  is  always  very  glad  when 
those  weeks  are  over.  He  has,  however,  his  own 
expensive  hobby,  which  gives  him  real  pleasure — his 
yacht,  his  picture  gallery,  his  museum,  his  collection  of 
wild  animals,  his  hothouses  or  his  racing  establishment. 
One  or  more  of  these  form  the  real  amusement  of  his 
active  and  useful  life. 

A  more  common  type  in  England  is  that  of  the  active 
politician.  Great  wealth  and  especially  great  landed 
property  brings  men  easily  into  Parliament,  and  if  united 
with  industry  and  some  measure  of  ability  into  official 
life,  and  public  life  thus  becomes  a  profession  and  in  many 
cases  a  very  laborious  one.  There  are  few  better  examples 
of  a  well-filled  life  and  of  the  skilful  management  and 
economy  of  time  than  are  to  be  found  in  the  lives  of  some 
great  noblemen  who  take  a  leading  part  in  politics  and 
preside  over  important  Government  departments  without 
suffering  their  gigantic  estates  to  fall  into  mismanagement, 
or  neglecting  the  many  social  duties  and  local  interests 
connected  with  them.  Most  of  their  success  is  indeed 
due  to  the  Wise  use  of  money  in  economising  time  by 
trustworthy  and  efficient  delegation.  Yet  the  superintend- 
ing brain,  the  skilful  choice,  the  personal  control  cannot 
be  dispensed  with.  In  a  life  so  fully  occupied,  the  few 
weeks  of  pleasure  which  may  be  spent  on  a  Scotch  moor 
or  in  a  Continental  watering-place  will  surely  not  be  con- 
demned. 


THE   LEADERS   OF  SOCIETY  265 

The  economy  of  time  and  the  elasticity  of  brain  and 
character  such  lives  develop  is,  however,  probably  ex- 
ceeded by  another  class.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in 
the  social  life  of  the  present  generation  than  the  high 
pressure  under  which  a  large  number  of  ladies  in  great 
positions  habitually  live.  It  strikes  every  Continental 
observer,  for  there  is  nothing  approaching  it  in  any  other 
European  country,  and  it  certainly  far  exceeds  anything 
that  existed  in  England  in  former  generations.  Pleasure- 
seeking  combined,  however,  on  a  large  scale  with  pleasure- 
giving,  holds  a  much  more  prominent  place  in  these  lives 
than  in  those  I  have  just  described.  With  not  a  few  women 
indeed  of  wealth  and  position,  it  is  the  all-in-all  of  life, 
and  in  general  it  is  probable  that  women  obtain  more 
pleasure  from  most  forms  of  society  than  men,  though 
it  is  also  true  that  they  bear  a  much  larger  share  of  its 
burdens.  There  are,  however,  in  this  class,  many  who 
combine  with  society  a  truly  surprising  number  and 
variety  of  serious  interests.  Not  only  the  management 
of  a  great  house,  not  only  the  superintendence  of  schools 
and  charities  and  local  enterprises  connected  with  a  great 
estate,  but  also  a  crowd  of  philanthropic,  artistic,  political, 
and  sometimes  literary  interests  fill  their  lives.  Few 
lives  indeed  in  any  station  are  more  full,  more  intense, 
more  constantly  and  variously  occupied.  Public  life, 
which  in  most  foreign  countries  is  wholly  outside  the 
sphere  of  women,  is  eagerly  followed.  Public  speaking, 
which  in  the  memory  of  many  now  living  was  almost 
unknown  among  women  of  any  station  in  English  society, 
has  become  the  most  ordinary  accomplishment.  Their 
object  is  to  put  into  life  from  youth  to  old  age  as  much 
as  life  can  give,  and  they  go  far  to  attain  their  end.  A 
wonderful  nimbleness  and  flexibility  of  intellect  capable 


266  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

of  turning  swiftly  from  subject  to  subject  has  been 
developed,  and  keeps  them  in  touch  with  a  very  wide 
range  both  of  interests  and  pleasures. 

There  are  no  doubt  grave  drawbacks  to  all  this. 
Many  will  say  that  this  external  activity  must  be  at  the 
sacrifice  of  the  duties  of  domestic  life,  but  on  this  subject 
there  is,  I  think,  at  least  much  exaggeration.  Education 
has  now  assumed  such  forms  and  attained  such  a  standard 
that  usually  for  many  hours  in  the  day  the  education  of 
the  young  in  a  wealthy  family  is  in  the  hands  of  accom- 
plished specialists,  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  most 
occupied  lives  are  those  in  which  the  cares  of  a  home  are 
most  neglected.  How  far,  however,  this  intense  and 
constant  strain  is  compatible  with  physical  well-being  is 
a  graver  question,  and  many  have  feared  that  it  must 
bequeath  weakened  constitutions  to  the  coming  generation. 
Nor  is  a  life  of  incessant  excitement  in  other  respects 
beneficial.  In  both  intellectual  and  moral  hygiene  the 
best  life  is  that  which  follows  nature  and  alternates  periods 
of  great  activity  with  periods  of  rest.  Ketirement,  quiet, 
steady  reading  and  the  silent  thought  which  matures 
character  and  deepens  impressions  are  things  that  seem 
almost  disappearing  from  many  English  lives.  But  lives 
such  as  I  have  described  are  certainly  not  useless, 
undeveloped,  or  wholly  selfish,  and  they  in  a  large  degree 
fulfil  that  great  law  of  happiness,  that  it  should  be  sought 
for  rather  in  interests  than  in  pleasures. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  class  who  value  money 
chiefly  because  it  enables  them  to  dismiss  money  thoughts 
and  cares  from  their  minds.  On  the  whole,  this  end  is 
probably  more  frequently  attained  by  men  of  moderate 
but  competent  fortunes  than  by  the  very  rich.  This  is  at 
least  the  case  when  they  are  sufficiently  rich  to  invest 


THE   GEEAT  SPECULATOR  267 

their  money  in  securities  which  are  Hable  to  no  serious 
risk  or  fluctuation.  A  gigantic  fortune  is  seldom  of  such 
a  nature  that  it  does  not  bring  with  it  great  cares  of 
administration  and  require  much  thought  and  many 
decisions.  There  is,  however,  one  important  exception. 
When  there  are  many  children  the  task  of  providing  for 
their  future  falls  much  more  lightly  on  the  very  rich  than 
on  those  of  medium  fortune. 

There  is  a  class,  however,  who  are  the  exact  opposite 
of  these  and  w^ho  make  the  simple  acquisition  of  money 
the  chief  interest  and  pleasure  of  their  lives.  Money- 
making  in  some  form  is  the  main  occupation  of  the  great 
majority  of  men,  but  it  is  usually  as  a  means  to  an  end. 
It  is  to  acquire  the  means  of  livelihood,  or  the  means  of 
maintaining  or  improving  a  social  position,  or  the  means 
of  providing  as  they  think  fit  for  the  children  who  are  to 
succeed  them.  Sometimes,  however,  with  the  very  rich 
and  without  any  ulterior  object,  money-making  for  its 
own  sake  becomes  the  absorbing  interest.  They  can 
pursue  it  with  great  advantage ;  for,  as  has  been  often 
said,  nothing  makes  money  like  money,  and  the  possession 
of  an  immense  capital  gives  innumerable  facilities  for 
increasing  it.  The  collecting  passion  takes  this  form. 
They  come  to  care  more  for  money  than  for  anything 
money  can  purchase,  though  less  for  money  than  for  the 
interest  and  the  excitement  of  getting  it.  Speculative 
enterprise  with  its  fluctuations,  uncertainties  and  surprises 
becomes  their  strongest  interest  and  their  greatest 
amusement. 

When  it  is  honestly  conducted  there  is  no  real  reason 
why  it  should  be  condemned.  On  these  conditions  a  life 
so  spent  is  I  think  usually  useful  to  the  world,  for  it 
generally  encourages  works  that  are  of  real  value.     All 


/ 

268  /  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

that  can  be  tralj  said  is  that  it  brings  with  it  grave 
temptations,  and  is  very  apt  to  lower  a  man's  moral 
being.  Speculation  easily  becomes  a  form  of  gambling 
so  fierce  in  its  excitement,  that  when  carried  on  inces- 
santly and  on  a  great  scale  it  kills  all  capacity  for  higher 
and  tranquil  pleasures,  strengthens  incalculably  the 
temptations  to  unscrupulous  gain,  disturbs  the  whole 
balance  of  character,  and  often  even  shortens  life.  With 
others  the  love  of  accumulation  has  a  strange  power 
of  materialising,  narrowing  and  hardening.  Habits  of 
meanness — sometimes  taking  curious  and  inconsistent 
forms,  and  applying  only  to  particular  things  or  depart- 
ments of  life — steal  insensibly  over  them,  and  the  love  of 
money  assumes  something  of  the  character  of  mania. 
Temptations  connected  with  money  are  indeed  among 
the  most  insidious  and  among  the  most  powerful  to 
which  we  are  exposed.  They  have  probably  a  wider 
empire  than  drink,  and,  unlike  the  temptations  that 
spring  from  animal  passion,  they  strengthen  rather  than 
diminish  with  age.  In  no  respect  is  it  more  necessary 
for  a  man  to  keep  watch  over  his  own  character,  taking 
care  that  the  unselfish  element  does  not  diminish,  and 
correcting  the  love  of  acquisition  by  generosity  of  expen- 
diture. 

It  is  probable  that  the  highest  form  of  charity,  involv- 
ing real  and  serious  self-denial,  is  much  more  common 
among  the  poor,  and  even  the  very  poor,  than  among  the 
rich.  I  think  most  persons  who  have  had  much  practical 
acquaintance  with  the  deaHngs  of  the  poor  with  one 
another  will  confirm  this.  It  is  certainly  far  less  com- 
mon among  those  who  are  at  the  opposite  pole  of  fortune. 
They  have  not  had  the  same  discipline,  or  indeed  the 
same  possibility  of  self-sacrifice,  or  the  same  means   of 


\' 


\ 

INJUDICIOUS  CHARITIES  V  269 

realising  the  pains  of  poverty,  and  there  is  another  reason 
which  tends  not  unnaturally  to  check  their  benevolence. 
A  man  with  the  reputation  of  great  wealth  soon  finds 
himself  beleaguered  by  countless  forms  of  mendicancy 
and  imposture.  He  comes  to  feel  that  there  is  a  general 
conspiracy  to  plunder  him,  and  he  is  naturally  thrown 
into  an  attitude  of  suspicion  and  self-defence.  Often, 
though  he  may  give  largely  and  generously,  he  will  do  so 
under  the  veil  of  strict  anonymity,  in  order  to  avoid  a 
reputation  for  generosity  which  will  bring  down  upon 
him  perpetual  solicitations.  If  he  is  an  intellectual  man  he 
will  probably  generalise  from  his  own  experience.  He  will 
be  deeply  impressed  with  the  enormous  evils  that  have 
sprung  from  ill-judged  charity,  and  with  the  superiority 
even  from  a  philanthropic  point  of  view  of  a  productive 
expenditure  of  money. 

And  in  truth  it  is  difficult  to  overrate  the  evil  effects 
of  injudicious  charities  in  discouraging  thrift,  industry, 
foresight  and  self-respect.  They  take  many  forms  ;  some 
of  them  extremely  obvious,  while  others  can  only  be 
rightly  judged  by  a  careful  consideration  of  remote  con- 
sequences. There  are  the  idle  tourists  who  break  down, 
in  a  once  unsophisticated  district,  that  sense  of  self-respect 
which  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  that  early 
education  can  give  by  flinging  pence  to  be  scrambled  for 
among  the  children,  or  who  teach  the  poor  the  fatal 
lesson  that  mendicancy  or  something  hardly  distinguish- 
able from  mendicancy  will  bring  greater  gain  than  honest 
and  continuous  work.  There  is  the  impulsive,  uninquiring 
charity  that  makes  the  trade  of  the  skilful  begging-letter 
writer  a  lucrative  profession,  and  makes  men  and  women 
who  are  rich,  benevolent  and  weak,  the  habitual  prey  of 
greedy  impostors.     There   is  the  old-established  charity 


270  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

for  ministering  to  simple  poverty  which  draws  to  its 
centre  all  the  pauperism  of  the  neighbouring  districts, 
depresses  wages  and  impoverishes  the  very  district  or 
class  it  was  intended  to  benefit.  There  are  charities 
which  not  only  largely  diminish  the  sufferings  that  are 
the  .  natural  consequence  and  punishment  of  vice  ;  but 
even  make  the  lot  of  the  criminal  and  the  vicious  a 
better  one  than  that  of  the  hard-working  poor.  There 
are  overlapping  charities  dealing  with  the  same  depart- 
ment, but  kept  up  with  lavish  waste  through  the  rivalry 
of  different  religious  denominations,  or  in  the  interests 
of  the  officials  connected  with  them ;  belated  or  super- 
annuated charities  formed  to  deal  with  circumstances  or 
sufferings  that  have  in  a  large  degree  passed  away — use- 
less, or  almost  useless,  charities  established  to  carry  out 
some  silly  fad  or  to  gratify  some  silly  vanity — sectarian 
charities  intended  to  further  ends  which,  in  the  eyes  of 
all  but  the  members  of  one  sect,  are  not  only  useless 
but  mischievous — charities  that  encourage  thriftless  mar- 
riages, or  make  it  easy  for  men  to  neglect  obvious  duties, 
or  keep  a  semi-pauper  population  stationary  in  employ- 
ments and  on  a  soil  where  they  can  never  prosper,  or  in 
other  ways  handicap,  impede  or  divert  the  natural  and 
healthy  course  of  industry.  Illustrations  of  all  these 
evils  will  occur  to  every  careful  student  of  the  subject. 
Unintelligent,  thoughtless,  purely  impulsive  charity,  and 
charity  which  is  inspired  by  some  other  motive  than  a 
real  desire  to  relieve  suffering,  will  constantly  go  wrong, 
but  every  intelligent  man  can  find  without  difficulty  vast 
fields  on  which  the  largest  generosity  may  be  expended 
with  abundant  fruit. 

Hospitals  and  kindred  institutions  for  alleviating  great 


JUDICIOUS   CHARITIES  271 

unavoidable  calamities,  and  giving  the  sick  poor  something 
of  the  same  chances  of  recovery  as  the  rich,  for  the  most 
part  fall  under  this  head.  Money  v^^ill  seldom  be  wasted 
which  is  spent  in  promoting  kinds  of  knowledge,  enter- 
prise or  research  that  bring  no  certain  remuneration 
proportioned  to  their  value  ;  in  assisting  poor  young  men 
of  ability  and  industry  to  develop  their  special  talents ; 
in  encouraging  in  their  many  different  forms  thrift,  self- 
help  and  co-operation ;  in  alleviating  the  inevitable  suf- 
fering that  follows  some  great  catastrophe  on  land  or  sea, 
or  great  transitions  of  industry,  or  great  fluctuations  and 
depressions  in  class  prosperity;  in  giving  the  means  of 
healthy  recreation  or  ennobling  pleasures  to  the  denizens 
of  a  crowded  town.  The  vast  sphere  of  education  opens 
endless  fields  for  generous  expenditure,  and  every  religious 
man  will  find  objects  which,  in  the  opinion  not  only 
of  men  of  his  own  persuasion,  but  also  of  many  others, 
are  transcendently  important.  Nor  is  it  a  right  principle 
that  charity  should  be  denied  to  all  calamities  which  are 
in  some  degree  due  to  the  fault  of  the  sufferer,  or  which 
might  have  been  averted  by  exceptional  forethought  or 
self-denial.  Some  economists  write  as  if  a  far  higher 
standard  of  will  and  morals  should  be  expected  among 
the  poor  and  the  uneducated  than  can  be  found  among 
the  rich.  Good  sense  and  right  feeling  will  here  easily 
draw  the  line,  abstaining  from  charities  that  have  a  real 
influence  in  encouraging  improvidence  or  vice,  yet  making 
due  allowance  for  the  normal  weaknesses  of  our  nature. 

In  all  these  ways  the  very  rich  can  find  ample  oppor- 
tunities for  useful  benevolence.  It  is  the  prerogative  of 
great  wealth  that  it  can  often  cure  what  others  can  only 
palliate,  and  can   establish   permanent   sources  of  good 


272  THE  MAP   OF  LIFE 

which  will  continue  long  after  the  donors  have  passed 
away.  In  dealing  with  individual  cases  of  distress,  rich 
men  who  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  inclination  »to 
investigate  the  special  circumstances  will  do  well  to  rely 
largely  on  the  recommendation  of  others.  If  they  choose 
trustworthy,  competent  and  sensible  advisers  with  as 
much  judgment  as  they  commonly  show  in  the  manage- 
ment of  their  private  affairs,  they  are  not  likely  to  go 
astray.  There  never  was  a  period  when  a  larger  amount 
of  intelligent  and  disinterested  labour  was  employed  in 
careful  and  detailed  examination  of  the  circumstances 
and  needs  of  the  poor.  The  parish  clergyman,  the  dis- 
trict visitor,  the  agents  of  the  Charity  Organization 
Society  which  annually  selects  its  special  cases  of  well- 
ascertained  need,  will  abundantly  furnish  them  with  the 
knowledge  they  require. 

The  advantage  or  disadvantage  of  the  presence  in  a 
country  of  a  large  class  of  men  possessing  fortunes  far 
exceeding  anything  that  can  really  administer  to  their 
enjoyment  is  a  question  which  has  greatly  divided  both 
political  economists  and  moralists.  The  former  were 
long  accustomed  to  maintain  somewhat  exclusively  that 
laws  and  institutions  should  be  established  with  the  object 
of  furthering  the  greatest  possible  accumulation  of  wealth, 
and  that  a  system  of  unrestricted  competition,  coupled 
with  equal  laws,  giving  each  man  the  most  complete 
security  in  the  possession  and  disposal  of  his  property,  was 
the  best  means  of  attaining  this  end.  They  urged  with 
great  truth  that,  although  under  such  a  system  the  in- 
equalities of  fortune  will  be  enormous,  most  of  the  wealth 
of  the  very  rich  will  inevitably  be  distributed  in  the  form 
of  wages,  purchases,  and  industrial  enterprises  through 
the  community  at  large,  and  that  other  things  being  equal 


POLITICAL   ECONO^ry   AND    WEALTH  273 

the  richest  country  will  on  the  whole  be  the  happiest. 
They  clearly  saw  the  complete  delusion  of  the  common 
assertions  that  the  more  millionaires  there  are  in  a 
country  the  more  paupers  will  multiply,  and  that  society 
is  dividing  between  the  enormously  rich  and  the  abjectly 
poor.  The  great  industrial  communities,  in  which  there 
are  the  largest  number  of  very  wealthy  men,  are  also  the 
centres  in  which  we  find  the  most  prosperous  middle 
class,  and  the  highest  and  most  progressive  rates  of  wages 
and  standards  of  comfort  among  the  poor.  Great  corrup- 
tion in  many  forms  no  doubt  exists  in  them,  but  it  can 
scarcely  be  maintained  with  confidence  that  the  standard 
of  integrity  is  on  the  whole  lower  in  these  than  in  other 
countries,  and  they  at  least  escape  what  in  many  poor 
countries  is  one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  corruption 
in  all  branches  of  administration — the  inadequate  pay  of 
the  servants  of  the  Crown.  The  path  of  liberty  in  the 
eyes  of  economists  of  this  school  is  the  path  of  wisdom, 
and  they  were  profoundly  distrustful  of  all  legislative 
attempts  to  restrict  or  interfere  with  the  course  of  indus- 
trial progress. 

In  our  own  generation  a  somewhat  different  tendency 
has  manifestly  strengthened.  It  has  been  said  that  past 
political  economists  paid  too  much  attention  to  the  accu- 
mulation and  too  little  to  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Men 
have  become  more  sensible  to  the  high  level  of  happiness 
and  moral  well-being  that  has  been  attained  in  some  of 
the  smaller  and  somewhat  stagnant  countries  of  Europe, 
where  wealth  is  more  generally  attained  by  thrift  and 
steady  industry  than  by  great  industrial  or  commercial 
enterprise — in  which  there  are  few  large  fortunes  but 
little  acute  poverty — a  low  standard  of  luxury,  but  a  high 
standard  of  real  comfort.     The  enormous  evils  that  have 

T 


274  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

grown  up  in  wealthy  countries,  in  the  form  of  company- 
mongering,  excessive  competition,  extravagant  and  often 
vicious  luxury,  and  dishonest  administration  of  public 
funds,  are  more  and  more  felt,  and  it  is  only  too  true 
that  in  these  countries  there  are  large  and  influential 
circles  of  society  in  which  all  considerations  of  character, 
intellect,  or  manners  seem  lost  in  an  intense  thirst  for 
wealth,  and  for  the  things  that  it  can  give.  Sometimes 
we  find  vast  fortunes  in  countries  where  there  is  but 
little  enterprise  and  a  very  low  standard  of  comfort  among 
the  people,  and  where  this  is  the  case  it  is  usually  due  to 
unequal  laws  or  corrupt  administration.  In  the  free,  demo- 
cratic, and  industrial  communities  great  fluctuations  and 
disparities  of  wealth  are  inevitable,  and  some  of  the  most 
colossal  fortunes  have,  no  doubt,  been  made  by  the  evil 
methods  I  have  described.  They  are,  however,  only  a 
minority,  and  not  a  very  large  one.  Like  all  the  great 
successes  of  life,  abnormal  accumulation  of  wealth  is 
usually  due  to  the  combination  in  different  proportions 
of  ability,  character,  and  chance,  and  is  not  tainted  with 
dishonesty.  On  the  whole,  the  question  that  should  be 
asked  is  not  what  a  man  has,  but  how  he  obtained  it 
and  how  he  uses  it.  When  wealth  is  honestly  acquired 
and  wisely  and  generously  used,  the  more  rich  men  there 
are  in  a  country  the  better. 

There  has  probably  never  been  a  period  in  the  history 
of  the  w^orld  when  the  conditions  of  industry,  assisted  by 
the  great  gold  discoveries  in  several  parts  of  the  globe, 
were  so  favourable  to  the  formation  of  enormous  fortunes 
as  at  present,  and  when  the  race  of  millionaires  was  so 
large.  The  majority  belong  to  the  English-speaking 
race ;  probably  most  of  their  gigantic  fortunes  have  been 
rapidly  accumulated,  and  bring  with  them  none  of  the 


EXPENDITURE   OF   MILLIONAIRES  275 

necessary,  hereditary,  and  clearly  defined  obligations  of  a 
great  landowner,  while  a  considerable  proportion  of  them 
have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  men  who,  through  their  educa- 
tion or  early  habits,  have  not  many  cultivated  or  naturally 
expensive  tastes.  In  England  many  of  the  new  million- 
aires become  great  landowners  and  set  up  great  establish- 
ments. In  America,  where  country  tastes  are  less  marked 
and  where  the  difficulties  of  domestic  service  are  very  great, 
this  is  less  common.  In  both  countries  the  number  of 
men  with  immense  fortunes,  absolutely  at  their  own 
disposal,  has  enormously  increased,  and  the  character  of 
their  expenditure  has  become  a  matter  of  real  national 
importance. 

Much  of  it,  no  doubt,  goes  in  simple  luxury  and  osten- 
tation, or  in  mere  speculation,  or  in  restoring  old  and 
dilapidated  fortunes  through  the  marriages  of  rank  with 
money  which  are  so  characteristic  of  our  time,  but  much 
also  is  devoted  to  charitable  or  philanthropic  purposes. 
In  this,  as  in  most  things,  motives  are  often  very  blended. 
To  men  of  such  fortunes,  such  expenditure,  even  on  a 
large  scale,  means  no  real  self-sacrifice,  and  the  induce- 
ments to  it  are  not  always  of  the  highest  kind.  To  some 
men  it  is  a  matter  of  ambition — a  legitimate  and  useful 
ambition — to  obtain  the  enduring  and  honourable  fame 
which  attaches  to  the  founder  of  a  great  philanthropic 
or  educational  establishment.  Others  find  that,  in  Eng- 
land at  least,  large  philanthropic  expenditure  is  one  of  the 
easiest  and  shortest  paths  to  social  success,  bringing  men 
and  women  of  low  extraction  and  bad  manners  into  close 
and  frequent  connection  with  the  recognised  leaders  of 
society  ;  while  others  again  have  discovered  that  it  is  the 
quickest  way  of  effacing  the  stigma  which  still  in  some 
degree  attaches  to  wealth  which  has  been  acquired  by 

T  2 


276  THE  MAP   OF   LIFE 

dishonourable  or  dubious  means.  Fashion,  social  ambi- 
tion, and  social  rivalries  are  by  no  means  unknown  in  the 
fields  of  charity.  There  are  many,  however,  in  whose 
philanthropy  the  element  of  self  has  no  place,  and  whose 
sole  desire  is  to  expend  their  money  in  forms  that  can  be 
of  most  real  and  permanent  benefit  to  others. 

Such  men  have  great  power,  and,  if  their  philanthropic 
expenditure  is  w^isely  guided,  it  may  be  of  incalculable 
benefit.  I  have  already  indicated  many  of  the  channels 
in  which  it  may  safely  flow,  but  one  or  two  additional 
hints  on  the  subject  may  not  be  useless.  Perhaps  as  a 
general  rule  these  men  will  find  that  they  can  act  most 
wisely  by  strengthening  and  enlarging  old  charities  which 
are  really  good,  rather  than  by  founding  new  ones. 
Competition  is  the  soul  of  industry,  but  certainly  not  of 
charity,  and  there  is  in  England  a  deplorable  waste  of 
money  and  machinery  through  the  excessive  multiplication 
of  institutions  intended  for  the  same  objects.  The  kind  of 
ambition  to  which  I  have  just  referred  tends  to  make  men 
prefer  new  charities  which  can  be  identified  with  their 
names  ;  the  paid  officials  connected  with  charities  have 
become  a  large  and  powerful  profession,  and  their  influ- 
ence is  naturally  used  in  the  same  direction ;  the  many 
different  religious  bodies  in  the  country  often  refuse  to 
combine,  and  each  desires  to  have  its  own  institutions  ; 
and  there  are  fashions  in  charity  which,  w^hile  they 
greatly  stimulate  generosity,  have  too  often  the  effect  of 
diverting  it  from  the  older  and  more  unobtrusive  forms. 
On  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  most  important  facts  in  our 
present  economical  condition  is  that  an  extraordinary  and 
almost  unparalleled  development  of  industrial  prosperity 
has  been  accompanied  by  extreme  and  long-continued 
agricultural  depression,  and  by  a  great  fall  in  the  rate  of 


OLD   AND   NEW   CHARITIES  277 

interest.  Wealth  in  many  forms  is  accumulating  with 
wonderful  rapidity,  and  the  increased  rate  of  wages  is 
diffusing  prosperity  among  the  working  classes  ;  but  those 
who  depend  directly  or  indirectly  on  agricultural  rents  or 
on  interest  of  money  invested  in  trust  securities  have 
been  suffering  severely,  and  they  comprise  some  of  the 
most  useful,  blameless,  and  meritorious  classes  in  the 
community.  The  same  causes  that  have  injured  them 
have  fallen  w4th  crushing  severity  on  old-established 
institutions  which  usually  derive  their  income  largely  or 
entirely  from  the  rent  of  land  or  from  money  invested  in 
the  public  funds.  The  bitter  cry  of  distress  that  is  rising 
from  the  hospitals  and  many  other  ancient  charities, 
from  the  universities,  from  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church,  abundantly  proves  it. 

The  preference,  however,  to  be  given  to  old  charities 
rather  than  to  new  ones  is  subject  to  very  many  excep- 
tions. It  does  not  apply  to  new  countries  or  to  the  many 
cases  in  w^hich  changes  and  developments  of  industry 
have  planted  vast  agglomerations  of  population  in  districts 
which  were  once  but  thinly  populated,  and  therefore  but 
little  provided  with  charitable  or  educational  institutions. 
Nor  does  it  apply  to  the  many  cases  in  which  the  circum- 
stances of  modern  life  have  called  into  existence  new 
forms  of  charity,  new  wants,  new  dangers  and  evils  to  be 
combated,  new  departments  of  knowledge  to  be  cultivated. 
One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  of  the  older  universities  is 
that  of  providing,  out  of  their  shrinking  endowments, 
for  the  teaching  of  branches  of  science  and  knowledge 
which  have  only  come  into  existence,  or  at  least  into 
prominence,  long  after  these  universities  were  esta- 
blished, and  some  of  which  require  not  only  trained 
teachers  but  costly  apparatus  and  laboratories.    Increasing 


278  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

international  competition  and  enlarged  scientific  know- 
ledge have  rendered  necessary  an  amount  of  technical 
and  agricultural  education  never  dreamed  of  by  our 
ancestors  ;  and  the  rise  of  the  great  provincial  towns  and 
the  greater  intensity  of  provincial  life  and  provincial 
patriotism,  as  well  as  the  changes  that  have  passed  over 
the  position  both  of  the  working  and  middle  classes, 
have  created  a  genuine  demand  for  educational  establish- 
ments of  a  different  type  from  the  older  universities.  The 
higher  education  of  women  is  essentially  a  nineteenth- 
century  work,  and  it  has  been  carried  on  without  the 
assistance  of  old  endowments  and  with  very  little  help 
from  modern  Parliaments.  In  the  distribution  of  public 
funds  a  class  which  is  wholly  unrepresented  in  Parliament 
seldom  gets  its  fair  share;  and  higher  education,  like 
most  forms  of  science,  like  most  of  the  higher  forms  of 
literature,  and  like  many  valuable  forms  of  research, 
never  can  be  self-supporting.  There  are  great  branches 
of  knowledge  which  without  established  endowments 
must  remain  uncultivated,  or  be  cultivated  only  by  men 
of  considerable  private  means.  Some  invaluable  curative 
agencies,  such  as  convalescent  homes  in  different  countries 
and  climates  and  for  different  diseases,  have  grown  up  in 
our  own  generation,  as  well  as  some  of  the  most  fruitful 
forms  of  medical  research  and  some  of  the  most  eJB&cacious 
methods  of  giving  healthy  change  and  brightness  to  the 
lives  that  are  most  monotonous  and  overstrained.  Every 
great  revolution  in  industry,  in  population,  and  even  in 
knowledge,  brings  with  it  new  and  special  wants,  and 
there  are  cases  in  which  assisted  emigration  is  one  of  the 
best  forms  of  charity. 

These  are  but  a  few  illustrations  of  the  directions  in 
which  the  large  surplus  funds  which  many  of  the  very 


SELF-HELP  OR  STATE   AID  279 

rich  are  prepared  to  expend  on  philanthropic  purposes 
may  profitably  go.  There  is  a  marked  and  increasing 
tendency  in  our  age  to  meet  all  the  various  exigencies  of 
Society,  as  they  arise,  by  State  aid  resting  on  compulsory 
taxation.  In  countries  where  the  levels  of  fortune  are 
such  that  few  men  have  incomes  greatly  in  excess  of  their 
real  or  factitious  wants,  this  method  will  probably  be 
necessary  ;  but  many  of  the  wants  I  have  described  can 
be  better  met  by  the  old  English  method  of  intelligent 
private  generosity,  and  in  a  country  in  which  the  number 
of  the  very  rich  is  so  great  and  so  increasing,  this 
generosity  should  not  be  wanting. 


280  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTEK  XIV 

MAEEIAGE 

The  beautiful  saying  of  Newton,  that  he  felt  like  a  child 
who  had  been  picking  up  a  few  pebbles  on  the  shore  of 
the  great  ocean  of  undiscovered  truth,  may  well  occur  to 
any  writer  who  attempts  to  say  something  on  the  vast 
subject  of  marriage.  The  infinite  variety  of  circumstances 
and  characters  affects  it  in  infinitely  various  ways,  and  all 
that  can  here  be  done  is  to  collect  a  few  somew^hat  isolated 
and  miscellaneous  remarks  upon  it.  Yet  it  is  a  subject 
which  cannot  be  omitted  in  a  book  like  this.  In  numerous 
cases  it  is  the  great  turning-point  of  a  life,  and  in  all  cases 
when  it  takes  place  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  of 
its  events.  Whatever  else  marriage  may  do  or  fail  to 
do,  it  never  leaves  a  man  unchanged.  His  intellect,  his 
character,  his  happiness,  his  way  of  looking  on  the  w^orld, 
will  all  be  influenced  by  it.  If  it  does  not  raise  or 
strengthen  him  it  will  lower  or  weaken.  If  it  does  not 
deepen  happiness  it  will  impair  it.  It  brings  with  it 
duties,  interests,  habits,  hopes,  cares,  sorrov/s,  and  joys 
that  will  penetrate  into  every  fissure  of  his  nature,  and 
modify  the  whole  course  of  his  life. 

It  is  strange  to  think  with  how  much  levity  and  how 
little  knowledge  a  contract,  which  is  so  indissoluble,  and 
at  the  same  time  so  momentous,  is  constantly  assumed — 
sometimes  under  the  influence  of  a  blinding  passion  and 


QUALITIES  NEEDED  IN  MARRIAGE  281 

at  an  age  when  life  is  still  looked  upon  a^.  a  romance 
or  an  idyll,  sometimes  as  a  matter  of  mere  ambition 
and  calculation — through  a  desire  for  wealth,  or  title,  or 
position.  Men  and  women  rely  on  the  force  of  habit  and 
necessity  to  accommodate  themselves  to  conditions  they 
have  never  really  understood  or  realised. 

In  most  cases  different  motives  combine,  though  in 
different  degrees.  Sometimes  an  overpowering  affection 
for  the  person  is  the  strongest  motive,  and  eclipses  all 
others.  Sometimes  the  main  motive  to  marriage  is  a 
desire  to  be  married.  It  is  to  obtain  a  settled  household 
and  position  ;  to  be  relieved  from  the  '  unchartered  freedom ' 
and  the  *  vague  desires '  of  a  lonely  life ;  to  find  some 
object  of  affection ;  to  acquire  the  steady  habits  and  the 
exemption  from  household  cares  which  are  essential  to 
a  career ;  to  perpetuate  a  race  ;  perhaps  to  escape  from 
family  discomforts,  or  to  introduce  a  new  and  happy 
influence  into  a  family.  With  these  motives  a  real 
affection  for  a  particular  person  is  united,  but  it  is  not  of 
such  a  character  as  to  preclude  choice,  judgment,  com- 
parison, and  a  consideration  of  worldly  advantages. 

It  is  a  wise  saying  of  Swift  that  there  would  be  few^er 
unhappy  marriages  in  the  w^orld  if  women  thought  less  of 
making  nets  and  more  of  making  cages.  The  qualities 
that  attract,  fascinate,  and  dazzle  are  often  widely  different 
from  those  which  are  essential  to  a  happy  marriage. 
Sometimes  they  are  distinctly  hostile  to  it.  More  fre- 
quently they  conduce  to  it,  but  only  in  an  inferior  or 
subsidiary  degree.  The  turn  of  mind  and  character  that 
makes  the  accomplished  flirt  is  certainly  not  that  which 
promises  best  for  the  happiness  of  a  married  life ;  and 
distinguished  beauty,  brilliant  talents,  and  the  heroic 
qualities  that  play  a  great  part  in  the  affairs  of  life,  and 


282  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

shine  conspicuously  in  the  social  sphere,  sink  into  a  minor 
place  among  the  elements  of  married  happiness.  In 
marriage  the  identification  of  two  lives  is  so  complete 
that  it  brings  every  faculty  and  gift  into  play,  but  in 
degrees  and  proportions  very  different  from  public  life  or 
casual  intercourse  and  relations.  The  most  essential  are 
often  wanting  in  a  brilliant  life,  and  largely  developed  in 
lives  and  characters  that  rise  little,  if  at  all,  above  the 
commonplace.  In  the  words  of  a  very  shrewd  man  of  the 
w^orld :  '  Before  marriage  the  shape,  the  figure,  the  com- 
plexion carry  all  before  them  ;  after  marriage  the  mind 
and  character  unexpectedly  claim  their  share,  and  that 
the  largest,  of  importance.'  ^ 

The  relation  is  one  of  the  closest  intimacy  and  con- 
fidence, and  if  the  identity  of  interest  between  the  two 
partners  is  not  complete,  each  has  an  almost  immeasurable 
power  of  injuring  the  other.  A  moral  basis  of  sterling 
qualities  is  of  capital  importance.  A  true,  honest,  and 
trustworthy  nature,  capable  of  self-sacrifice  and  self- 
restraint,  should  rank  in  the  first  line,  and  after  that  a 
kindly,  equable,  and  contented  temper,  a  power  of  sympathy, 
a  habit  of  looking  at  the  better  and  brighter  side  of  men 
and  things.  Of  intellectual  qualities,  judgment,  tact,  and 
order  are  perhaps  the  most  valuable.  Above  almost  all 
things,  men  should  seek  in  marriage  perfect  sanity,  and 
dread  everything  like  hysteria.  Beauty  will  continue  to 
be  a  delight,  though  with  much  diminished  power,  but 
grace  and  the  charm  of  manner  will  retain  their  full 
attraction  to  the  last.  They  brighten  in  innumerable 
ways  the  little  things  of  life,  and  life  is  mainly  made  up 
of  little  things,  exposed  to  petty  frictions,  and  requiring 
small  decisions  and  small  sacrifices.  Wide  interests  and 
'  Melbourne  Papers,  p.  72. 


QUALITIES  ]S'EEDED   IN  MARKIAGE  283 

large  appreciations  are,  in  the  marriage  relation,  more 
important  than  any  great  constructive  or  creative  talent, 
and  the  power  to  soothe,  to  sympathise,  to  counsel,  and  to 
endure  than  the  highest  qualities  of  the  hero  or  the  saint. 
It  is  by  these  alone  that  the  married  life  attains  its  full 
measure  of  perfection.   #    »    . 

/  '  Tu  mihi  curarum  reqnies  in  nocte  vel  atra  07^.^^^^ 

Lumen,  et  in  solis  tu  mihi  turba  locis.'  ^      j 

But  while  this  is  true  of  all  marriages,  it  is  obvious 
that  different  professions  and  circumstances  of  life  will 
demand  different  qualities.  A  hard-working  labouring 
man,  or  a  man  w^ho,  though  not  labouring  with  his  hands, 
is  living  a  life  of  poverty  and  struggle,  will  not  seek  in 
marriage  a  type  of  character  exactly  the  same  as  a  man 
who  is  born  to  a  great  position,  and  who  has  large  social 
and  administrative  duties  to  discharge.  The  wife  of  a 
clergyman  immersed  in  the  many  interests  of  a  parish ; 
the  wife  of  a  soldier  or  a  merchant,  who  may  have  to  live 
in  many  lands,  with  long  periods  of  separation  from  her 
husband,  and  perhaps  amid  many  hardships ;  the  wife  of 
an  active  and  ambitious  politician  ;  the  wife  of  a  busy  pro- 
fessional man  incessantly  occupied  outside  his  home  ;  the 
wife  of  a  man  whose  health  or  business  or  habits  keep  him 
constantly  in  his  house,  will  each  need  some  special  quali- 
ties. There  are  few  things  in  which  both  men  and  women 
naturally  differ  more  than  in  the  elasticity  and  adaptive- 
ness  of  their  natures,  in  their  power  of  bearing  monotony, 
in  the  place  which  habit,  routine,  and  variety  hold  in 
their  happiness  ;  and  in  different  kinds  of  life  these 
things  have  very  different  degrees  of  importance.  Special 
family   circumstances,   such    as    children    by  a    former 


)   '  Propertius.    | 


284  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 

marriage,  or  difficult  and  delicate  relations  with  members 
of  the  family  of  one  partner,  will  require  the  exercise  of 
special  qualities.  Such  relations,  indeed,  are  often  one 
of  the  most  searching  and  severe  tests  of  the  sterling  quali- 
ties of  female  character. 

Probably,  on  the  whole,  the  best  presumption  of  a 
successful  choice  in  marriage  will  be  found  where  the 
wife  has  not  been  educated  in  circumstances  or  ideas 
absolutely  dissimilar  from  those  of  her  married  life. 
Marriages  of  different  races  or  colours  are  rarely  happy, 
and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  marriages  between  persons 
of  social  levels  that  are  so  different  as  to  entail  great 
differences  of  manners  and  habits.  Other  and  minor 
disparities  of  circumstances  between  girl  life  and  married 
life  will  have  their  effect,  but  they  are  less  strong  and 
less  invariable.  Some  of  the  happiest  marriages  have 
been  marriages  of  emancipation,  which  removed  a  girl 
from  uncongenial  family  surroundings,  and  placed  her 
for  the  first  time  in  an  intellectual  and  moral  atmosphere 
in  which  she  could  freely  breathe.  At  the  same  time,  in 
the  choice  of  a  wife  the  character,  circumstances,  habits, 
and  tone  of  the  family  in  which  she  has  been  brought  up 
will  always  be  an  important  element.  There  are  qualities 
of  race,  there  are  pedigrees  of  character  which  it  is  never 
prudent  to  neglect.  Franklin  quotes  with  approval  the 
advice  of  a  wise  man  to  choose  a  wife  *  out  of  a  bunch,' 
as  girls  brought  up  together  improve  each  other  by 
emulation,  learn  mutual  self-sacrifice  and  forbearance, 
rub  off  their  angularities,  and  are  not  suffered  to  develop 
overweening  self-conceit.  A  family  where  the  ruling 
taste  is  vulgar,  where  the  standard  of  honour  is  low, 
where  extravagance  and  self-indulgence  and  want  of  order 
habitually  prevail,  creates  an  atmosphere  which  it  needs  a 


j  HEREDITARY   DISEASE  285 

strong  character  altogether  to  escape.  There  is  also  the 
great  question  of  physical  health.  A  man  should  seek  in 
marriage  rather  to  raise  than  to  depress  the  physical  level 
of  his  family,  and  above  all  not  to  introduce  into  it  grave, 
well-ascertained  hereditary  disease.  Of  all  forms  of  self- 
sacrifice  hardly  any  is  at  once  so  plainly  right  and  so 
plainly  useful  as  the  celibacy  of  those  v^ho  are  tainted  >^ 
with  such  disease.  ^  »  /  ^ 

There  is  no  subject  on  w^hich  religious  teachers  have 
dwelt  more  than  upon  marriage  and  the  relation  of  the 
sexes,  and  it  has  been  continually  urged  that  the  propa- 
gation of  children  is  its  first  end.  It  is  strange,  however, 
r  AjL^  to  observe  how  almost  absolutely  in  the  popular  ethics  of 
Christendom  such  considerations  as  that  which  I  have 
last  mentioned  have  been  neglected.  If  one  of  the  most 
responsible  things  that  a  man  can  do  is  to  bring  a  human 
being  into  the  world,  one  of  his  first  and  most  obvious 
duties  is  to  do  what  he  can  to  secure  that  it  shall  come 
into  the  world  with  a  sound  body  and  a  sane  mind. 
This  is  the  best  inheritance  that  parents  can  leave  their 
children,  and  it  is  in  a  large  degree  within  their  reach. 
Immature  marriage,  excessive  child-bearing,  marriages 
of  near  relations,  and,  above  all,  marriages  with  some 
grave  hereditary  physical  or  mental  disease  or  some  great 
natural  defect,  may  bring  happiness  to  the  parents,  but 
can  scarcely  fail  to  entail  a  terrible  penalty  upon  their 
children.  It  is  clearly  recognised  that  one  of  the  first 
duties  of  parents  to  their  children  is  to  secure  them  in 
early  life  not  only  good  education,  but  also,  as  far  as  is 
within  their  powder,  the  conditions  of  a  healthy  being. 
But  the  duty  goes  back  to  an  earlier  stage,  and  in 
marriage  the  prospects  of  the  unborn  should  never  be 
forgotten.     This  is  one  of  the  considerations  which  in  the 


286  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

ethics  of  the  future  is  likely  to  have  a  wholly  different 
place  from  any  that  it  has  occupied  in  the  past. 

A  kindred  consideration,  little  less  important  and 
almost  equally  neglected  in  popular  teaching,  is  that  it 
is  a  moral  offence  to  bring  children  into  the  world  with 
no  prospect  of  being  able  to  provide  for  them.  It  is  Cy^ 
difficult  to  exaggerate  the  extent  to  which  the  neglect  of 
these  two  duties  has  tended  to  the  degradation  andunhappi- 
ness  of  the  world. 

The  greatly  increased  importance  which  the  Darwinian 
'theory  has  given  to  heredity  should  tend  to  make  men 
more  sensible  of  the  first  of  these  duties.  In  marriage 
there  are  not  only  reciprocal  duties  between  the  two 
partners  ;  there  are  also,  more  than  in  any  other  act  of 
life,  plain  duties  to  the  race.  The  hereditary  nature  of 
insanity  and  of  some  forms  of  disease  is  an  indisputable 
truth.  The  hereditary  transmission  of  character  has  not, 
it  is  true,  as  yet  acquired  this  position ;  and  there  is  a 
grave  schism  on  the  subject  in  the  Darwinian  school. 
But  that  it  exists  to  some  extent  few  close  observers  will 
doubt,  and  it  is  in  a  high  degree  probable  that  it  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  moulding  influences  of  life.  Ko  more 
probable  explanation  has  yet  been  given  of  the  manner  in 
which  human  nature  has  been  built  up,  and  of  the  various 
instincts  and  tastes  with  which  we  are  born,  than  the 
doctrine  that  habits  and  modes  of  thought  and  feeling 
indulged  in  and  produced  by  circumstances  in  former 
generations  have  gradually  become  innate  in  the  race,  and 
exhibit  themselves  spontaneously  and  instinctively  and 
quite  independently  of  the  circumstances  that  originally 
produced  them.  According  to  this  theory  the  same 
process  is  continually  going  on.  Man  has  slowly  emerged 
from  a  degraded  and  bestial  condition.     The  pressure  of 


Y 


EFFECT  OF    RELIGIOUS   CELIBACY  287 


long-continued  circumstances  has  moulded  him  into  his 
special  type ;  but  new  feelings  and  habits,  or  modifica- 
tions of  old  feelings  and  habits,  are  constantly  passing 
not  only  into  his  life  but  into  his  nature,  taking  root 
there,  and  in  some  degree  at  least  reproducing  them- 
selves by  the  force  of  heredity  in  the  innate  disposition  of 
his  offspring.  If  this  be  true,  it  gives  a  new  and  terrible 
importance  both  to  the  duty  of  self-culture  and  to  the 
duty  of  wise  selection  in  marriage.  It  means  that 
children  are  likely  to  be  influenced  not  only  by  what 
we  do  and  by  what  we  say,  but  also  by  what  we  are,  and 
that  the  characters  of  the  parents  in  different  degrees  and 
combinations  will  descend  even  to  a  remote  posterity.  .  . 
fyy^'  ]  It  throws  a  not  less  terrible  light  upon  the  mis^ 
calculations  of  the  past.  On  this  hypothesis,  as  Mr. 
Galton  has  truly  shown,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  ex- 
aggerate the  evil  which  has  been  brought  upon  the 
world  by  the  religious  glorification  of  celibacy  and  by 
the  enormous  development  and  encouragement  of  the 
monastic  life.  Generation  after  generation,  century  after 
century,  and  over  the  whole  wide  surface  of  Christendom, 
this  conception  of  religion  drew  into  a  sterile  celibacy 
nearly  all  who  were  most  gentle,  most  unselfish,  most 
earnest,  studious,  and  religious,  most  susceptible  to  moral 
and  intellectual  enthusiasm,  and  thus  prevented  them 
from  transmitting  to  posterity  the  very  qualities  that 
are  most  needed  for  the  happiness  and  the  moral  pro- 
gress of  the  race.  Whenever  the  good  and  evil  resulting 
from  different  religious  systems  come  to  be  impartially 
judged,  this  consideration  is  likely  to  weigh  heavily  in 
the  scale. ^ 

'  Galton's  Hereditary  Genius,  pp.  357-8.    It  may  be  argued,  on   the 
other  side,  that  the  monasteries  consigned  to  celibacy  a  great  proportion  of     7 


288  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

Returning,  however,  to  the  narrower  sphere  of  par- 
ticular marriages,  it  may  be  observed  that  although  full 
confidence  and,  in  one  sense,  complete  identification  of 
interests  are  the  characteristics  of  a  perfect  marriage, 
this  does  not  by  any  means  imply  that  one  partner  should 
be  a  kind  of  duplicate  of  the  other.  Woman  is  not  a 
mere  weaker  man  ;  and  the  happiest  marriages  are  often 
those  in  which,  in  tastes,  character,  and  intellectual 
qualities,  the  wife  is  rather  the  complement  than  the 
reflection  of  her  husband.  In  intellectual  things  this  is 
constantly  shown.  The  purely  practical  and  prosaic 
intellect  is  united  with  an  intellect  strongly  tinged  with 
poetry  and  romance ;  the  man  whose  strength  is  in  facts 
with  the  woman  whose  strength  is  in  ideas ;  the  man 
who  is  wholly  absorbed  in  science  or  politics  or  economical 
or  industrial  problems  and  pursuits  with  a  woman  who 
possesses  the  talent  or  at  least  the  temperament  of  an 
artist  or  musician.  In  such  cases  one  partner  brings 
sympathies  or  qualities,  tastes  or  appreciations  or  kinds 
of  knowledge  in  which  the  other  is  most  defective ;  and 
by  the  close  and  constant  contact  of  two  dissimilar  types 
each  is,  often  insensibly,  but  usually  very  effectually, 
improved.  Men  differ  greatly  in  their  requirements  of 
intellectual  sympathy.  A  perfectly  commonplace  intel- 
lectual surrounding  will  usually  do  something  to  stunt  or 
lower  a  fine  intelligence,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
each  man  finds  the  best  intellectual  atmosphere  to  be 
that  which  is  most  in  harmony  with  his  own  special 
talent. 

To  many,  hard   intellectual  labour  is   an  eminently 

the  weaker  physical  natures,  who  would  otherwise  have  left  sickly  children 
behind  them.  This,  and  the  much  greater  mortality  of  weak  infant  life, 
must  have  strengthened  the  race  in  an  age  when  sanitary  science  was 
unknown  and  when  external  conditions  were  very  unfavourable.    \ 


MARRIAGE   OF  DISSIMILAR  CHARACTERS         289 

isolated  thing,  and  what  they  desire  most  in  the  family- 
circle  is  to  cast  off  all  thought  of  it.  I  have  known  two 
men  who  were  in  the  first  rank  of  science,  intimate 
friends,  and  both  of  them  of  very  domestic  characters. 
One  of  them  was  accustomed  to  do  nearly  all  his  work 
in  the  presence  of  his  wife,  and  in  the  closest  possible 
co-operation  with  her.  The  other  used  to  congratulate 
himself  that  none  of  his  family  had  his  own  scientific 
tastes,  and  that  when  he  left  his  work  and  came  into  his 
family  circle  he  had  the  rest  of  finding  himself  in  an 
atmosphere  that  was  entirely  different.  Some  men  of 
letters  need  in  their  work  constant  stimulus,  interest,  and 
sympathy.  Others  desire  only  to  develop  their  talent 
uncontrolled,  uninfluenced,  and  undisturbed,  and  with  an 
atmosphere  of  cheerful  quiet  around  them. 

What  is  true  of  intellect  is  also  in  a  large  degree  true 
of  character.  Two  persons  living  constantly  together 
should  have  many  tastes  and  sympathies  in  common, 
and  their  characters  will  in  most;  cases  tend  to  assimilate. 
Yet  great  disparities  of  character  may  subsist  in  marriage, 
not  only  without  evil  but  often  with  great  advantage. 
This  is  especially  the  case  where  each  supplies  what  is 
most  needed  in  the  other.  Some  natures  require  sedatives 
and  others  tonics ;  and  it  will  often  be  found  in  a  happy 
marriage  that  the  union  of  two  dissimilar  natures  stimu- 
lates the  idle  and  inert,  moderates  the  impetuous,  gives 
generosity  to  the  parsimonious  and  order  to  the  extrava- 
gant, imparts  the  spirit  of  caution  or  the  spirit  of  en- 
terprise which  is  most  needed,  and  corrects  by  contact 
with  a  healthy  and  cheerful  nature  the  morbid  and  the 
desponding. 

Marriage  may  also  very  easily  have  opposite  effects. 
It  is  not  unfrequently  founded  on  the   sympathy  of  a 

u 


290  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

common  weakness,  and  when  this  is  the  case  it  can 
hardly  fail  to  deepen  the  defect.  On  the  whole,  women, 
in  some  of  the  most  valuable  forms  of  strength — in  the 
power  of  endurance  and  in  the  power  of  perseverance — 
are  at  least  the  equals  of  men.  But  weak  and  tremulous 
nerves,  excessive  sensibility,  and  an  exaggerated  share  of 
impulse  and  emotion  are  indissolubly  associated  with 
certain  charms,  both  of  manner  and  character,  which  are 
intensely  feminine,  and  to  many  men  intensely  attractive. 
When  a  nature  of  this  kind  is  wedded  to  a  weak  or  a 
desponding  man,  the  result  will  seldom  be  happiness  to 
either  party,  but  with  a  strong  man  such  marriages  are 
often  very  happy.  Strength  may  wed  with  weakness 
or  with  strength,  but  weakness  should  beware  of  mating 
itself  with  weakness.  It  needs  the  oak  to  support  the 
ivy  with  impunity,  and  there  are  many  who  find  the 
constant  contact  of  a  happy  and  cheerful  nature  the  first 
essential  of  their  happiness. 

As  it  is  not  wise  or  right  that  either  partner  in 
marriage  should  lose  his  or  her  individuaHty,  so  it  is 
right  that  each  should  have  an  independent  sphere  of 
authority.  It  is  assumed,  of  course,  that  there  is  the 
perfect  trust  which  should  be  the  first  condition  of 
marriage  and  also  a  reasonable  judgment.  Many  mar- 
riages have  been  permanently  marred  because  the  woman 
has  been  given  no  independence  in  money  matters,  and 
is  obliged  to  come  for  each  small  thing  to  her  husband. 
In  general  the  less  the  husband  meddles  in  household 
matters,  or  the  wife  in  professional  ones,  the  better.  The 
education  of  very  young  children  of  both  sexes,  and  of 
girls  of  a  mature  age,  will  fall  almost  exclusively  to  the 
wife.  The  education  of  the  boys  when  they  have 
emerged  from  childhood  will  be  rather  governed  by  the 


EFFECT   ON   CHARACTER  291 

judgment  of  the  man.  Many  things  will  be  regulated  in 
common ;  but  the  larger  interests  of  the  family  will 
usually  fall  chiefly  to  one  partner,  the  smaller  and  more 
numerous  ones  to  the  other. 

On  such  matters,  however,  generalisations  have  little 
value,  as  exceptions  are  very  numerous.  Differences  of 
character,  age,  experience,  and  judgment,  and  countless 
special  circumstances  will  modify  the  family  type,  and  it 
is  in  discovering  these  differences  that  wisdom  in  marriage 
mainly  consists.  The  directions  in  which  married  life 
may  influence  character  are  also  very  many ;  but  in  the 
large  number  of  cases  in  which  it  brings  with  it  a  great 
weight  of  household  cares  and  family  interests,  it  will 
usually  be  found  with  both  partners,  but  especially  with 
the  woman,  at  once  to  strengthen  and  to  narrow  unselfish- 
ness. She  will  live  very  little  for  herself,  but  very  ex- 
clusively for  her  family.  On  the  intellectual  side  such 
marriages  usually  give  a  sounder  judgment  and  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  world  rather  than  purely  intellectual 
tastes.  It  is  a  good  thing  when  the  education  which 
precedes  marriage  not  only  prepares  for  the  duties  of  the 
married  life,  but  also  furnishes  a  fair  share  of  the  interests 
and  tastes  which  that  state  will  probably  tend  to  weaken. 
The  hard  battle  of  life,  and  the  anxieties  and  sorrows  that 
a  family  seldom  fails  to  bring,  will  naturally  give  an 
increased  depth  and  seriousness  to  character.  There  are, 
however,  natures  which,  though  they  may  be  tainted  by 
no  grave  vice,  are  so  incurably  frivolous  that  even  this 
education  will  fail  to  influence  them.  As  Emerson  says, 
'  A  fly  is  as  untameable  as  a  hyaena.' 

The  age  that  is  most  suited  for  marriage  is  also  a 
matter  which  will  depend  largely  on  individual  cir- 
cumstances.     The   ancients,    as   is   well   known,   placed 

u  2 


292  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

it,  in  the  case  of  the  man,  far  back,  and  they  desired  a 
great  difference  of  age  between  the  man  and  the  woman. 
Plato  assigned  between  thirty  and  thirty-five,  and 
Aristotle  thirty-seven,  as  the  best  age  for  a  man  to 
marry,  while  they  would  have  the  girls  married  at 
eighteen  or  twenty.^  In  their  view,  however,  marriage 
was  looked  upon  very  exclusively  from  the  side  of  the 
man  and  of  the  State.  They  looked  on  it  mainly  as  the 
means  of  producing  healthy  citizens,  and  it  was  in  their 
eyes  almost  wholly  dissociated  from  the  passion  of  love. 
Montaigne,  in  one  of  his  essays,  has  expounded  this  view 
with  the  frankest  cynicism.^  Yet  few  things  are  so  im- 
portant in  marriage  as  that  the  man  should  bring  into  it 
the  freshness  and  the  purity  of  an  untried  nature,  and  that 
the  early  poetry  and  enthusiasm  of  life  should  at  least 
in  some  degree  blend  with  the  married  state.  Nor  is  it 
desirable  that  a  relation  in  which  the  formation  of  habits 
plays  so  large  a  part  should  be  deferred  until  character 
has  lost  its  flexibility,  and  until  habits  have  been  irre- 
trievably hardened. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  invincible  arguments 
against  marriages  entered  into  at  an  age  when  neither 
partner  has  any  real  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  men. 
Only  too  often  they  involve  many  illusions,  and  leave 
many  regrets.  Some  kinds  of  knowledge,  such  as  that 
given  by  extended  travel,  are  far  more  easily  acquired 
before  than  after  marriage.  Usually  very  early  marriages 
are  improvident  marriages,  made  with  no  sufficient  pro- 
vision for  the  children,  and  often  they  are  immature 
marriages,  bringing  with  them  grave  physical  evils.  In 
those  cases  in  which  a  great  place  or  position  is  to  be 
inherited,  it  is  seldom  a  good  thing  that  the  interval  of 

'  Republic,  Book  V.     Politics,  Book  VII.  2  j^^^re  III.  ch.  5. 


INCREASED  INDEPENDENCE   OF  WOMEN  293 

age  between  the  owner  and  his  heir  should  be  so  small 
that  inheritance  will  probably  be  postponed  till  the  con- 
fines of  old  age. 

Marriages  entered  into  in  the  decline  of  life  stand 
somewhat  apart  from  others,  and  are  governed  by  other 
motives.  What  men  chiefly  seek  in  them  is  a  guiding 
hand  to  lead  them  gently  down  the  last  descent  of  life. 

On  this,  as  on  most  subjects  connected  with  marriage, 
no  general  or  inflexible  rule  can  be  laid  down.  Moralists 
have  chiefly  dilated  on  the  dangers  of  deferred  marriages ; 
economists  on  the  evils  of  improvident  marriages.  Each 
man's  circumstances  and  disposition  must  determine 
his  course.  On  the  whole,  however,  in  most  civilised 
countries  the  prevailing  tendencies  are  in  the  direction 
of  an  increased  postponement  of  marriage.  Among  the 
rich,  the  higher  standard  of  luxury  and  requirements, 
the  comforts  of  club  life,  and  also,  I  think,  the  diminished 
place  which  emotion  is  taking  in  life,  all  lead  to  this, 
while  the  spread  of  providence  and  industrial  habits 
among  the  poor  has  the  same  tendency.       .    . 

A  female  pen  is  so  much  more  competent  than  a 
masculine  one  for  dealing  with  marriage  from  the  woman's 
point  of  view  that  I  do  not  attempt  to  enter  on  that  field. 
It  is  impossible,  however,  to  overlook  the  marked  ten- 
dency of  nineteenth-century  civilisation  to  give  women, 
both  married  and  unmarried,  a  degree  of  independence 
and  self-reliance  far  exceeding  that  of  the  past.  Thp 
legislation  of  most  civilised  countries  has  granted  theri 
full  protection  for  their  property  and  their  earnings, 
increased  rights  of  guardianship  over  their  children,  a 
wider  access  to  professional  life,  and  even  a  very  con- 
siderable voice  in  the  management  of  public  affairs ;  and 
these   influences   have   been   strengthened  by  great  im- 


294  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

provenient  in  female  education,  and  by  a  change  in  the 
social  tone,  which  has  greatly  extended  their  latitude  of 
independent  action.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  this  movement  is,  on  the  whole,  beneficial,  not  only 
to  those  who  have  to  fight  a  lonely  battle  in  life,  but  also 
to  those  who  are  in  the  married  state.  Larger  interests, 
wider  sympathies,  a  more  disciplined  judgment,  and  a 
greater  power  of  independence  and  self-control  naturally 
accompany  it ;  and  these  things  can  never  be  wholly 
wasted.  They  will  often  be  called  into  active  exercise  by 
the  many  vicissitudes  of  the  married  life.  They  will, 
perhaps,  be  still  more  needed  w^hen  the  closest  of  human 
ties  is  severed  by  the  great  Divorce  of  Death. 


SUCCESS  AND   CHARACTER  296 


CHAPTER  XV 

SUCCESS 

One  of  the  most  important  lessons  that  experience 
teaches  is  that  on  the  whole,  and  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  success  in  life  depends  more  on  character  than  on 
either  intellect  or  fortune.  Many  brilliant  exceptions,  no 
doubt,  tend  to  obscure  the  rule,  and  some  of  the  qualities 
of  character  that  succeed  the  best  may  be  united  with 
grave  vices  or  defects ;  but  on  the  whole  the  law  is  one 
that  cannot  be  questioned,  and  it  becomes  more  and  more 
apparent  as  civilisation  advances.  Temperance,  industry, 
integrity,  frugality,  self-reliance,  and  self-restraint  are  the 
means  by  which  the  great  masses  of  men  rise  from  penury 
to  comfort,  and  it  is  the  nations  in  which  these  qualities 
are  most  diffused  that  in  the  long  run  are  the  most  prosper- 
ous. Chance  and  circumstance  may  do  much.  A  happy 
climate,  a  fortunate  annexation,  a  favourable  vicissitude 
in  the  course  of  commerce,  may  vastly  influence  the 
prosperity  of  nations ;  anarchy,  agitation,  unjust  laws, 
and  fraudulent  enterprise  may  offer  many  opportunities 
of  individual  or  even  of  class  gains ;  but  ultimately  it  will 
be  found  that  the  nations  in  which  the  solid  industrial 
virtues  are  most  diffused  and  most  respected  pass  all 
others  in  the  race.  The  moral  basis  of  character  was 
the  true  foundation  of  the  greatness  of  ancient  Eome, 
and  when  that  foundation  was  sapped  the  period  of  her 


296  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

decadence  began.  The  solid,  parsimonious,  and  indus- 
trious qualities  of  the  French  peasantry  have  given  their 
country  the  recuperative  force  which  has  enabled  its  great- 
ness to  survive  the  countless  follies  and  extravagances  of 
its  rulers. 

Character,  it  may  be  added,  is  especially  pre-eminent 
in  those  kinds  and  degrees  of  success  that  affect  the 
greatest  numbers  of  men,  and  influence  most  largely  their 
real  happiness — in  the  success  which  secures  a  high  level 
of  material  comfort;  which  makes  domestic  life  stable 
and  happy ;  which  wins  for  a  man  the  respect  and  confi- 
dence of  his  neighbours.  If  we  have  melancholy  examples 
that  very  different  qualities  often  gain  splendid  prizes,  it 
is  still  true  that  there  are  few  walks  in  life  in  which  a 
character  that  inspires  complete  confidence  is  not  a  lead- 
ing element  of  success. 

In  the  paths  of  ambition  that  can  only  be  pursued  by 
the  few,  intellectual  qualities  bear  a  larger  part,  and  there 
are,  of  course,  many  works  of  genius  that  are  in  their 
own  nature  essentially  intellectual.  Yet  even  the  most 
splendid  successes  of  life  will  often  be  found  to  be  due 
much  less  to  extraordinary  intellectual  gifts  than  to  an 
extraordinary  strength  and  tenacity  of  will,  to  the  abnormal 
courage,  perseverance,  and  work-power  that  spring  from 
it,  or  to  the  tact  and  judgment  which  make  men  skilful 
in  seizing  opportunities,  and  which,  of  all  intellectual 
qualities,  are  most  closely  allied  with  character. 

Strength  of  will  and  tact  are  not  necessarily,  perhaps 
not  generally,  conjoined,  and  often  the  first  seems  somewhat 
to  impair  the  second.  The  strong  passion,  the  intense  con- 
viction, the  commanding  and  imperious  nature  overriding 
obstacles  and  defying  opposition,  that  often  goes  with  a  will 
of  abnormal  strength,  does  not  naturally  harmonise  with 


WILL-POWER   AND   TACT  297 

the  reticence  of  expression,  the  delicacy  of  touch  and 
management  that  characterises  a  man  who  possesses  in  a 
high  degree  the  gift  of  tact.  There  are  circumstances 
and  times  when  each  of  these  two  things  is  more  im- 
portant than  the  other,  and  the  success  of  each  man  will 
mainly  depend  upon  the  suitability  of  his  peculiar  gift 
to  the  work  he  has  to  do.  '  The  daring  pilot  in  extremity  ' 
is  often  by  no  means  the  best  navigator  in  a  quiet  sea ; 
and  men  who  have  shown  themselves  supremely  great 
in  moments  of  crisis  and  appalling  danger,  who  have 
built  up  mighty  nations,  subdued  savage  tribes,  guided 
the  bark  of  the  State  with  skill  and  courage  amid  the 
storms  of  revolution  or  civil  war,  and  written  their 
names  in  indelible  letters  on  the  page  of  history,  have 
sometimes  proved  far  less  successful  than  men  of  inferior 
powers  in  the  art  of  managing  assemblies,  satisfying  rival 
interests,  or  assuaging  by  judicious  compromise  old 
hatreds  and  prejudices.  We  have  had  at  least  one  con- 
spicuous example  of  the  difference  of  these  two  types 
in  our  own  day  in  the  life  of  the  great  founder  of  German 
Unity. 

Sometimes,  however,  men  of  great  strength  of  will 
and  purpose  possess  also  in  a  high  degree  the  gift  of 
tact ;  and  when  this  is  combined  with  soundness  of 
judgment,  it  usually  leads  to  a  success  in  life  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  purely  intellectual  qualities.  In 
nearly  all  administrative  posts,  in  all  the  many  fields 
of  labour  where  the  task  of  man  is  to  govern,  manage, 
or  influence  others,  to  adjust  or  harmonise  antagonisms 
of  race  or  interests  or  prejudices,  to  carry  through 
difficult  business  without  friction  and  by  skilful  co- 
operation, this  combination  of  gifts  is  supremely  valuable. 
It    is   much   more   valuable   than   brilliancy,  eloquence, 


298  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

or  originality.  I  remember  the  comment  of  a  good 
judge  of  men  on  the  administration  of  a  great  governor 
who  was  pre-eminently  remarkable  for  this  combination. 
*  He  always  seemed  to  gain  his  point,  yet  he  never 
appeared  to  be  in  antagonism  with  anyone.'  The  steadj^ 
pressure  of  a  firm  and  consistent  will  was  scarcely  felt 
when  it  was  accompanied  by  the  ready  recognition  of 
everything  that  was  good  in  the  argument  of  another, 
and  by  a  charm  of  manner  and  of  temper  which 
seldom  failed  to  disarm  opposition  and  win  personal 
affection. 

The  combination  of  qualities  which,  though  not 
absolutely  incompatible,  are  very  usually  disconnected, 
is  the  secret  of  many  successful  lives.  Thus,  to  take  one 
of  the  most  homely,  but  one  of  the  most  useful  and  most 
pleasing  of  all  qualities — good-nature — it  will  too  often 
be  found  that  when  it  is  the  marked  and  leading  feature 
of  a  character  it  is  accompanied  by  some  want  of  firmness, 
energy,  and  judgment.  Sometimes,  however,  this  is  not 
the  case,  and  there  are  then  few  greater  elements  of 
success.  It  is  curious  to  observe  the  subtle,  magnetic 
sympathy  by  which  men  feel  whether  their  neighbour  is 
a  harsh  or  a  kind  judge  of  others,  and  how  generally 
those  who  judge  harshly  are  themselves  harshly  judged, 
while  those  who  judge  others  rather  by  their  merits  than 
by  their  defects,  and  perhaps  a  little  above  their  merits, 
win  popularity. 

No  one,  indeed,  can  fail  to  notice  the  effect  of  good- 
nature in  conciliating  opposition,  securing  attachment, 
smoothing  the  various  paths  of  life,  and,  it  must  be  added, 
concealing  grave  faults.  Laxities  of  conduct  that  might 
well  blast  the  reputation  of  a  man  or  a  woman  are  con- 
stantly forgotten,  or  at  least  forgiven,  in  those  who  lead 


TACT  299 

a  life  of  tactful  good-nature,  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  world 
this  quality  is  more  valued  than  others  of  far  higher  and 
more  solid  worth.  It  is  not  unusual,  for  example,  to  see 
a  lady  in  society,  who  is  living  wholly  or  almost  wholly 
for  her  pleasures,  who  has  no  high  purpose  in  life,  no  real 
sense  of  duty,  no  capacity  for  genuine  and  serious  self-sacri- 
fice, but  who  at  the  same  time  never  says  an  unkind 
thing  of  her  neighbours,  sets  up  no  severe  standard  of 
conduct  either  for  herself  or  for  others,  and  by  an  innate 
amiability  of  temperament  tries,  successfully  and  without 
effort,  to  make  all  around  her  cheerful  and  happy.  She 
will  probably  be  more  admired,  she  will  almost  certainly 
be  more  popular,  than  her  neighbour  whose  whole  life  is 
one  of  self-denial  for  the  good  of  others,  who  sacrifices 
to  her  duties  her  dearest  pleasures,  her  time,  her  money, 
and  her  talents,  but  who  through  some  unhappy  turn 
of  temper,  strengthened  perhaps  by  a  narrow  and  austere 
education,  is  a  harsh  and  censorious  judge  of  the  frailties 
of  her  fellows. 

It  is  also  a  curious  thing  to  observe  how  often,  when 
the  saving  gift  of  tact  is  wanting,  the  brilliant,  the  witty, 
the  ambitious,  and  the  energetic  are  passed  in  the  race  of 
life  by  men  who  in  intellectual  qualities  are  greatly  their 
inferiors.  They  dazzle,  agitate,  and  in  a  measure  in- 
fluence, and  they  easily  win  places  in  the  second  rank ; 
but  something  in  the  very  exercise  of  their  talents 
continually  trammels  them,  while  judgment,  tact,  and 
good-nature,  with  comparatively  little  brilliancy,  quietly 
and  unobtrusively  take  the  helm.  There  is  the  excel- 
lent talker  who,  by  his  talents  and  his  acquirements, 
is  eminently  fitted  to  delight  and  to  instruct,  yet  he  is 
so  unable  to  repress  some  unseemly  jest  or  some  pointed 
sarcasm  or  some  humorous  paradox  that  he  continually 


300  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

leaves  a  sting  behind  him,  creates  enemies,  destroys  his 
reputation  for  sobriety  of  thought,  and  makes  himself 
impossible  in  posts  of  administration  and  trust.  There  is 
the  parliamentary  speaker  who,  amid  shouts  of  applause, 
pursues  his  adversary  with  scathing  invective  or  merciless 
ridicule,  and  who  all  the  time  is  accumulating  animosities 
against  himself,  shutting  the  door  against  combinations 
that  would  be  all  important  to  his  career,  and  destroying 
his  chances  of  party  leadership.  There  is  the  advocate 
who  can  state  his  case  with  consummate  power,  but  who, 
by  an  aggressive  manner  or  a  too  evident  contempt  for 
his  adversary,  or  by  the  over-statement  of  a  good  cause, 
habitually  throws  the  minds  of  his  hearers  into  an  atti- 
tude of  opposition.  There  are  the  many  men  who,  by 
ill-timed  or  too  frequent  levity,  lose  all  credit  for  their 
serious  qualities,  or  who  by  pretentiousness  or  self-asser- 
tion or  restless  efforts  to  distinguish  themselves,  make 
themselves  universally  disliked,  or  who  by  their  egotism 
or  their  repetitions  or  their  persistence,  or  their  incapa- 
city of  distinguishing  essentials  from  details,  or  under- 
standing the  dispositions  of  others,  or  appreciating  times 
and  seasons,  make  their  wearied  and  exasperated  hearers 
blind  to  the  most  substantial  merits.  By  faults  of  tact 
men  of  really  moderate  opinions  get  the  reputation  of 
extremists  ;  men  of  substantially  kindly  natures  sow  ani- 
mosities wherever  they  go  ;  men  of  real  patriotism  are 
regarded  as  mere  jesters  or  party  gamblers ;  men  who 
possess  great  talents  and  have  rendered  great  services  to 
the  world  sink  into  inveterate  bores  and  never  obtain 
from  their  contemporaries  a  tithe  of  the  success  which 
was  their  due.  Tact  is  not  merely  shown  in  saying 
the  right  thing  at  the  right  time  and  to  the  right  people ; 
it  is  shown  quite  as  much  in  the  many  things  that  are 


TACT  301 

left  unsaid  and  apparently  unnoticed,  or  are  only  lightly 
and  evasively  touched. 

It  is  certainly  not  the  highest  of  human  endowments, 
but  it  is  as  certainly  one  of  the  most  valuable,  for  it  is 
that  which  chiefly  enables  a  man  to  use  his  other  gifts  to 
advantage,  and  which  most  effectually  supplies  the  place 
of  those  that  are  wanting.  It  lies  on  the  borderland  of 
character  and  intellect.  It  implies  self-restraint,  good 
temper,  quick  and  kindly  sympathy  with  the  feelings  of 
others.  It  implies  also  a  perception  of  the  finer  shadings 
of  character  and  expression,  the  intellectual  gift  which 
enables  a  man  to  place  himself  in  touch  with  great 
varieties  of  disposition,  and  to  catch  those  more  delicate 
notes  of  feeling  to  which  a  coarser  nature  is  insensible. 

It  is  perhaps  in  most  cases  more  developed  among 
women  than  among  men,  and  it  does  not  necessarily  imply 
any  other  remarkable  gift.  It  is  sometimes  found  both 
among  men  and  women  of  very  small  general  intellectual 
powers  ;  and  in  numerous  cases  it  serves  only  to  add  to 
the  charm  of  private  life,  and  to  secure  social  success. 
Where  it  is  united  with  real  talents  it  not  only  enables  its 
possessor  to  use  these  talents  to  the  greatest  advantage  ; 
it  also  often  leads  those  about  him  greatly  to  magnify 
their  amount.  The  presence  or  absence  of  this  gift  is 
one  of  the  chief  causes  why  the  relative  value  of  different 
men  is  often  so  differently  judged  by  contemporaries  and 
by  posterity  ;  by  those  who  have  come  in  direct  personal 
contact  with  them,  and  by  those  who  judge  them  from 
without,  and  by  the  broad  results  of  their  lives.  Eeal 
tact,  like  good  manners,  is,  or  becomes  a  spontaneous  and 
natural  thing.  The  man  of  perfectly  refined  manners 
does  not  consciously  and  deliberately  on  each  occasion 
observe   the   courtesies   and   amenities   of  good   society. 


302  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

They  have  become  to  him  a  second  nature,  and  he 
observes  them  as  by  a  kind  of  instinct,  without  thought 
or  effort.  In  the  same  way  true  tact  is  something  wholly 
different  from  the  elaborate  and  artificial  attempts  to 
conciliate  and  attract  which  may  often  be  seen,  and  which 
usually  bring  with  them  the  impression  of  manoeuvre  and 
insincerity. 

Though  it  may  be  found  in  men  of  very  different 
characters  and  grades  of  intellect,  tact  has  its  natural 
affinities.  Seeking  beyond  all  things  to  avoid  unnecessary 
friction,  and  therefore  with  a  strong  leaning  towards 
compromise,  it  does  not  generally  or  naturally  go  with 
intense  convictions,  with  strong  enthusiasms,  with  an 
ardently  impulsive  or  emotional  temperament.  Nor  is 
it  commonly  found  among  men  of  deep  and  concentrated 
genius,  intensely  absorbed  in  some  special  subject.  Such 
men  are  often  among  the  most  unobservant  of  the  social 
sides  of  life,  and  very  bad  judges  of  character,  though  there 
will  frequently  be  found  among  them  an  almost  childlike 
unworldliness  and  simplicity  of  nature,  and  an  essential 
moderation  of  temperament  which,  combined  with  their 
superiority  of  intellect,  gives  them  a  charm  peculiarly 
their  own.  Tact,  however,  has  a  natural  affinity  to  a 
calm,  equable,  and  good-natured  temper.  It  allies  itself 
with  a  quick  sense  of  opportunity,  proportion,  and  degree ; 
with  the  power  of  distinguishing  readily  and  truly  between 
the  essential  and  the  unimportant ;  with  that  soundness 
of  judgment  which  not  only  guides  men  among  the  varied 
events  of  life,  and  in  their  estimate  of  those  about  them, 
but  also  enables  them  to  take  a  true  measure  of  their 
own  capacities,  of  the  tasks  that  are  most  fitted  for  them, 
of  the  objects  of  ambition  that  are  and  are  not  within 
their  reach. 


NEWMAN'S  CHARACTER  OF  A   GENTLEMAN       303 

Though  in  its  higher  degrees  it  is  essentially  a  natural 
gift,  and  is  sometimes  conspicuous  in  perfectly  uneducated 
men,  it  may  be  largely  cultivated  and  improved ;  and  in 
this  respect  the  education  of  good  society  is  especially  valu- 
able. Such  an  education,  whatever  else  it  may  do,  at  least 
removes  many  jarring  notes  from  th'e  rhythm  of  life.  It 
tends  to  correct  faults  of  manner,  demeanour,  or  pro- 
nunciation which  tell  against  men  to  a  degree  altogether 
disproportioned  to  their  real  importance,  and  on  which, 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  the  casual  judgments  of  the 
world  are  mainly  formed  ;  and  it  also  fosters  moral  quali- 
ties which  are  essentially  of  the  nature  of  tact. 

We  can  hardly  have  a  better  picture  of  a  really  tactful 
man  than  in  some  sentences  taken  from  the  admirable 
pages  in  which  Cardinal  Newman  has  painted  the  char- 
acter of  the  perfect  gentleman. 

'  It  is  almost  a  definition  of  a  gentleman  to  say  he  is 
one  who  never  inflicts  pain.  .  .  .  He  carefully  avoids 
whatever  may  cause  a  jar  or  a  jolt  in  the  minds  of  those 
with  whom  he  is  cast — all  clashing  of  opinion  or  collision 
of  feeling,  all  restraint  or  suspicion,  or  gloom  or  resent- 
ment ;  his  great  concern  being  to  make  everyone  at  their 
ease  and  at  home.  He  has  his  eyes  on  all  his  company  ; 
he  is  tender  towards  the  bashful,  gentle  towards  the 
distant,  and  merciful  towards  the  absurd ;  he  can  recollect 
to  whom  he  is  speaking  ;  he  guards  against  unreasonable 
allusions  or  topics  that  may  irritate  ;  he  is  seldom  promi- 
nent in  conversation,  and  never  wearisome.  He  makes 
light  of  favours  while  he  does  them,  and  seems  to  be 
receiving  when  he  is  conferring.  He  never  speaks  of 
himself  except  when  compelled,  never  defends  himself  by 
a  mere  retort ;  he  has  no  ears  for  slander  or  gossip,  is 
scrupulous  in  imputing  motives  to  those  who  interfere 


304  THE  MAP  OF  LIFE 

with  him,  and  interprets  everything  for  the  best.  He  is 
never  mean  or  little  in  his  disputes,  never  takes  an  unfair 
advantage,  never  mistakes  personalities  or  sharp  sayings 
for  arguments,  or  insinuates  evil  which  he  dare  not  say 
out.  .  .  .  He  has  too  much  good  sense  to  be  affronted  at 
insult ;  he  is  too  busy  to  remember  injuries,  and  too  indo- 
lent to  bear  malice.  ...  If  he  engages  in  controversy  of 
any  kind  his  disciplined  intellect  preserves  him  from  the 
blundering  discourtesy  of  better  though  less  educated 
minds,  who,  like  blunt  weapons,  tear  and  hack  instead  of 
cutting  clean.  .  .  .  He  may  be  right  or  wrong  in  his 
opinion,  but  he  is  too  clear-headed  to  be  unjust ;  he  is  as 
simple  as  he  is  forcible,  and  as  brief  as  he  is  decisive. 
Nowhere  shall  we  find  greater  candour,  consideration, 
indulgence.  He  throws  himself  into  the  minds  of  his 
opponents,  he  accounts  for  their  mistakes.  He  knows 
the  w^eakness  of  human  nature  as  well  as  its  strength,  its 
province,  and  its  limits.'  ^ 

I  have  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  that 
character  bears,  on  the  whole,  a  larger  part  in  promoting 
success  than  any  other  things,  and  that  a  steady  perse- 
verance in  the  industrial  virtues  seldom  fails  to  bring 
some  reward  in  the  directions  that  are  most  conducive 
to  human  happiness.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  only  too 
evident  that  success  in  life  is  by  no  means  measured  by 
merit,  either  moral  or  intellectual.  Life  is  a  great  lottery, 
in  which  chance  and  opportunity  play  an  enormous  part. 
The  higher  qualities  are  often  less  successful  than  the 
medium  and  the  lower  ones.  They  are  often  most  suc- 
cessful when  they  are  blended  with  other  and  inferior 
elements,  and  a  large  share  of  the  great  prizes  fall  to  the 
unscrupulous,  the  selfish,  and  the  cunning.  Probably, 
>  Newman's  Scope  and  Nature  of  University  Education,  Discourse  IX. 


SUCCESS  AND  HAPPINESS  806 

however,  the  disparity  between  merit  and  success  dimin- 
ishes if  we  take  the  larger  averages,  and  the  fortunes  of 
nations  correspond  with  their  real  worth  much  more 
nearly  than  the  fortunes  of  individuals.  Success,  too,  is 
far  from  being  a  synonym  for  happiness,  and  while  the 
desire  for  happiness  is  inherent  in  all  human  nature,  the 
desire  for  success — at  least  beyond  what  is  needed  for 
obtaining  a  fair  share  of  the  comforts  of  life — is  much 
less  universal.  The  force  of  habit,  the  desire  for  a 
tranquil  domestic  life,  the  love  of  country  and  of  home 
are  often,  among  really  able  men,  stronger  than  the  im- 
pulse of  ambition;  and  a  distaste  for  the  competitions 
and  contentions  of  life,  for  the  increasing  responsibilities 
of  greatness,  and  for  the  envy  and  jealousies  that  seldom 
fail  to  follow  in  its  trail,  may  be  found  among  men  who, 
if  they  chose  to  enter  the  arena,  seem  to  have  every 
requisite  for  success.  The  strongest  man  is  not  always 
the  most  ardent  climber,  and  the  tranquil  valleys  have 
to  many  a  greater  charm  than  the  lofty  pinnacles  of  life. 


306  THE   MAP  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTEK  XVI 

TIME 

CoNSiDEEiNG  the  countless  ages  that  man  has  lived  upon 
this  globe,  it  seems  a  strange  thing  that  he  has  so  little 
learned  to  acquiesce  in  the  normaljsonditions  of  humanity. 
How  large  a  proportion  of  the  melancholy  which  is  re- 
flected in  the  poetry  of  all  ages,  and  which  is  felt  in 
different  degrees  in  every  human  soul,  is  due  not  to  any 
special  or  peculiar  misfortune,  but  to  things  that  are 
common  to  the  whole  human  race  !  The  inexorable  flight 
of  time,  the  approach  of  old  age  and  its  infirmities,  the 
shadow  of  death,  the  mystery  that  surrounds  our  being, 
the  contrast  between  the  depth  of  affection  and  the 
transitoriness  and  uncertainty  of  life,  the  spectacle  of 
the  broken  lives  and  baffled  aspirations  and  useless 
labours  and  misdirected  talents  and  pernicious  energies 
and  long-continued  delusions  that  fill  the  path  of  human 
history  ;  the  deep  sense  of  vanity  and  aimlessness  that 
must  sometimes  come  over  us  as  we  contemplate  a  world 
in  which  chance  is  so  often  stronger  than  wisdom;  in 
which  desert  and  reward  are  so  widely  separated,  in 
which  living  beings  succeed  each  other  in  such  a  vast 
and  bewildering  redundance — eating,  killing,  suffering, 
and  dying  for  no  useful  discoverable  purpose — all  these 
things  belong  to  the  normal  lot,  or  to  the  inevitable  setting 
of  human  life.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  science,  which 
has  so  largely  extended  our  knowledge  of  the  Universe, 


THE   VANITY   OF   LIFE  807 

or  civilisation,  which  has  so  greatly  multiplied  our 
comforts  and  alleviated  our  pains,  has  in  any  degree 
diminished  the  sadness  they  bring.  It  seems,  indeed,  as 
if  the  more  man  is  raised  above  a  purely  animal  existence 
and  his  mental  and  moral  powers  are  developed,  the  more 
this  kind  of  feeling  increases. 

In  few  if  any  periods  of  the  world's  history  has  it  been 
more  perceptible  in  literature  than  at  present.  Physical 
constitution  and  temperament  has  a  vast  and  a  humiliat- 
ing power  of  deepening  or  lightening  it,  and  the  strength 
or  weakness  of  religious  belief  largely  affects  it,  yet  the 
best,  the  strongest,  the  most  believing,  and  the  most 
prosperous  cannot  wholly  escape  it.  Sometimes  it  finds 
its  true  expression  in  the  lines  of  Raleigh : 

Even  such  is  time ;  which  takes  in  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  and  all  we  have  ! 
And  pays  us  nought  but  age  and  dust, 
Which  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways. 
Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days ; 
And  from  which  grave  and  earth  and  dust, 
The  Lord  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust. 

Sometimes  it  takes  the  tone  of  a  hghter  melancholy 
touched  with  cynicism : 

La  vie  est  vaine  : 

Un  peu  d'amour, 
Un  peu  de  haine, 

Et  puis — bon  jour. 
La  vie  est  breve, 

Un  peu  d'espoir, 
Un  peu  de  reve, 

Et  puis — bon  soir.' 

There  are  few  sayings  which  deserve  better  to  be 
brought  continually  before  our  minds  than  that  of 
Franklin  :  *  You  value  life ;  then  do  not  squander  time, 
for  time  is  the  stuff  of  life.'     Of  all  the  things  that  are 

'  Monte-Naken. 

X  2 


808  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

bestowed  on  men,  none  is  more  valuable,  but  none  is 
more  unequally  used,  and  the  true  measurement  of  life 
should  be  found  less  in  its  duration  than  in  the  amount 
that  is  put  into  it.  The  waste  of  time  is  one  of  the 
oldest  of  commonplaces,  but  it  is  one  of  those  which  are 
never  really  stale.  How  much  of  the  precious  *  stuff  of 
life '  is  wasted  by  want  of  punctuality ;  by  want  of 
method  involving  superfluous  and  repeated  effort ;  by 
want  of  measure  prolonging  things  that  are  pleasurable 
or  profitable  in  moderation  to  the  point  of  weariness, 
satiety,  and  extravagance ;  by  want  of  selection  dwelling 
too  much  on  the  useless  or  the  unimportant ;  by  want  of 
intensity,  growing  out  of  a  nature  that  is  listless  and 
apathetic  both  in  work  and  pleasure.  Time  is,  in  one 
sense,  the  most  elastic  of  things.  It  is  one  of  the 
commonest  experiences  that  the  busiest  men  find  most 
of  it  for  exceptional  work,  and  often  a  man  who,  under 
the  strong  stimulus  of  an  active  professional  life,  repines 
bitterly  that  he  finds  so  little  time  for  pursuing  some 
favourite  work  or  study,  discovers,  to  his  own  surprise, 
that  when  circumstances  have  placed  all  his  time  at 
his  disposal,  he  does  less  in  this  field  than  in  the  hard- 
earned  intervals  of  a  crowded  life.  The  art  of  wisely 
using  the  spare  five  minutes,  the  casual  vacancies  or 
intervals  of  life,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  we  can 
acquire.  There  are  lives  in  which  the  main  preoccupation 
is  to  get  through  time.  There  are  others  in  which  it  is 
to  find  time  for  all  that  has  to  be  got  through,  and  most 
men,  in  different  periods  of  their  lives,  are  acquainted 
with  both  extremes.  With  some,  time  is  mere  duration, 
a  blank,  featureless  thing,  gliding  swiftly  and  insensibly 
by.  With  others  every  day,  and  almost  every  hour, 
seems  to  have   its  distinctive   stamp  and   character,  for 


INCREASE   OF  LIFE  809 

good  or  ill,  in  work  or  pleasure.  There  are  vast  differ- 
ences in  this  respect  between  different  ages  of  history, 
and  between  different  generations  in  the  same  country, 
between  town  and  country  life,  and  between  different 
countries.  *  Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of 
Cathay '  is  profoundly  true,  and  no  traveller^can  fail  to 
be  insensible  to  the  difference  in  the  value  of  time  in  a 
Northern  and  in  a  Southern  country.  The  leisure  of  some 
nations  seems  busier  than  the  work  of  others,  and  few 
things  are  more  resting  to  an  overwrought  and  jaded  Anglo- 
Saxon  nature  than  to  pass  for  a  short  season  into  one  of 
those  countries  where  time  seems  almost  without  value. 

On  the  whole,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  life  in  the 
more  civilised  nations  has,  in  our  own  generation,  largely 
increased.  It  is  not  simply  that  its  average  duration  is 
extended.  This,  in  a  large  degree,  is  due  to  the  diminished 
amount  of  infant  mortality.  The  improvement  is  shown 
more  conclusively  in  the  increased  commonness  of  vigorous 
and  active  old  age,  in  the  multitude  of  new  contrivances 
for  economising  and  therefore  increasing  time,  in  the  far 
greater  intensity  of  life  both  in  the  forms  of  work  and 
in  the  forms  of  pleasure.  *  Life  at  high  pressure '  is  not 
without  its  drawbacks  and  its  evils,  but  it  at  least  means 
life  which  is  largely  and  fully  used. 

All  intermissions  of  work,  however,  even  when  they 
do  not  take  the  form  of  positive  pleasure,  are  not  waste  of 
time.  Overwork,  in  all  departments  of  life,  is  commonly 
bad  economy,  not  so  much  because  it  often  breaks  down 
health — most  of  what  is  attributed  to  this  cause  is  pro- 
bably rather  due  to  anxiety  than  to  work — as  because  it 
seldom  fails  to  impair  the  quality  of  work.  A  great 
portion  of  our  lives  passes  in  the  unconsciousness  of 
sleep,  and  perhaps  no  part  is  more  usefully  spent.     It 


810  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

not  only  brings  with  it  the  restoration  of  our  physical 
energies,  but  it  also  gives  a  true  and  healthy  tone  to 
our  moral  nature.  Of  all  earthly  things  sleep  does  the 
most  to  place  things  in  their  true  proportions,  calming 
excited  nerves  and  dispelling  exaggerated  cares.  How 
many  suicides  have  been  averted,  how^  many  rash  enter- 
prises and  decisions  have  been  prevented,  how  many 
dangerous  quarrels  have  been  allayed,  by  the  soothing 
influence  of  a  few  hours  of  steady  sleep  !  '  Sleep  that 
knits  up  the  ravell'd  sleeve  of  care '  is,  indeed,  in  a  care- 
worn world,  one  of  the  chief  of  blessings.  Its  healing 
and  restorative  power  is  as  much  felt  in  the  sicknesses  of 
the  mind  as  in  those  of  the  body,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
authority  of  Solomon,  it  is  probably  a  wise  thing  for  men 
to  take  the  full  measure  of  it,  which  undoctored  nature 
demands.  The  true  waste  of  time  of  the  sluggard  is  not 
in  the  amount  of  natural  sleep  he  enjoys,  but  in  the  time 
idly  spent  in  bed  when  sleep  has  ceased,  and  in  misplaced 
and  mistimed  sleep,  which  is  not  due  to  any  genuine 
craving  of  the  body  for  rest,  but  simply  to  mental  slug- 
gishness, to  lack  of  interest  and  attention. 

Some  men  have  claimed  for  sleep  even  more  than  this. 
*  The  night-time  of  the  body,'  an  ancient  writer  has  said, 
*is  the  day-time  of  the  soul,'  and  some,  who  do  not 
absolutely  hold  the  old  behef  that  it  is  in  the  dreams 
of  the  night  that  the  Divine  Spirit  most  communicates 
with  man,  have,  nevertheless,  believed  that  the  complete 
withdrawal  of  our  minds  from  those  worldly  cares  which 
haunt  our  waking  hours  and  do  so  much  to  materialise 
and  harden  our  natures  is  one  of  the  first  conditions  of 
a  higher  life.  *  In  proportion,'  said  Swedenborg,  *  as  the 
mind  is  capable  of  being  withdrawn  from  things  sensual 
and  corporeal,  in  the  same  proportion  it  is  elevated  into 


SLEEP  311 

things  celestial  and  spiritual.'  It  has  been  noticed  that 
often  thoughts  and  judgments,  scattered  and  entangled  in 
our  evening  hours,  seem  sifted,  clarified,  and  arranged  in 
sleep ;  that  problems  which  seemed  hopelessly  confused 
when  we  lay  down  are  at  once  and  easily  solved  when  we 
awake,  *  as  though  a  reason  more  perfect  than  reason  had 
been  at  work  when  we  were  in  our  beds.'  Something 
analogous  to  this,  it  has  been  contended,  takes  place  in 
our  moral  natures.  *  A  process  is  going  on  in  us  during 
those  hours  which  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  brought  so 
effectually,  if  at  all,  at  any  other  time,  and  we  are 
spiritually  growing,  developing,  ripening  more  continu- 
ously while  thus  shielded  from  the  distracting  influences 
of  the  phenomenal  world  than  during  the  hours  in  which 
we  are  absorbed  in  them.  ...  Is  it  not  precisely  the 
function  of  sleep  to  give  us  for  a  portion  of  every  day  in 
our  lives  a  respite  from  worldly  influences  which,  unin- 
terrupted, would  deprive  us  of  the  instruction,  of  the 
spiritual  reinforcements,  necessary  to  qualify  us  to  turn 
our  waking  experiences  of  the  world  to  the  best  account 
without  being  overcome  by  them  ?  It  is  in  these  hours 
that  the  plans  and  ambitions  of  our  external  worldly  life 
cease  to  interfere  with  or  obstruct  the  flow  of  the  Divine 
life  into  the  will.'  ^ 

Without,  however,  following  this  train  of  thought,  it 
is  at  least  sufficiently  clear  that  no  small  portion  of  the 
happiness  of  life  depends  upon  our  sleeping  hours.  Plato 
has  exhorted  men  to  observe  carefully  their  dreams  as 
indicating  their  natural  dispositions,  tendencies,  and 
temptations,  and — perhaps  with  more  reason — Burton  and 
Franklin  have  proposed  '  the  art  of  procuring  pleasant 
dreams '  as  one  of  the  great,  though   little   recognised,. 

'  See  The  Mystery  of  Sleep,  by  John  Bigelow. 


312  THE  MAP   OF   LIFE 

branches  of  the  science  of  life.  This  is,  no  doubt,  mainly 
a  question  of  diet,  exercise,  efficient  ventilation,  and  a 
wise  distribution  of  hours,  but  it  is  also  largely  influenced 
by  moral  causes. 

Somnia  quae  mentes  ludunt  volitantibus  umbris, 
Nee  delubra  deum,  nee  ab  asthere  numina  mittunt, 
Sad  sibi  quisque  facit. 

To  appease  the  perturbations  of  the  mind,  to  live  a 
tranquil,  upright,  unremorseful  life,  to  cultivate  the  power 
of  governing  by  the  will  the  current  of  our  thoughts, 
repressing  unruly  passions,  exaggerated  anxieties,  and 
unhealthy  desires,  is  at  least  one  great  receipt  for  banish- 
ing from  our  pillows  those  painful  dreams  that  contribute 
not  a  little  to  the  unhappiness  of  many  lives. 

An  analogous  branch  of  self-culture  is  that  which 
seeks  to  provide  some  healthy  aliment  for  the  waking 
hours  of  the  night,  when  time  seems  so  unnaturally  pro- 
longed, and  when  gloomy  thoughts  and  exaggerated  and 
distempered  views  of  the  trials  of  life  peculiarly  prevail. 
Among  the  ways  in  which  education  may  conduce  to  the 
real  happiness  of  man,  its  power  of  supplying  pleasant 
or  soothing  thoughts  for  those  dreary  hours  is  not  the 
least,  though  it  is  seldom  or  never  noticed  in  books  or 
speeches.  It  is,  perhaps,  in  this  respect  that  the  early 
habit  of  committing  poetry — and  especially  religious 
poetry — to  memory  is  most  important. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  those  intermissions  of 
labour  which  are  not  spent  in  active  enjoyment  one  other 
consideration  may  be  noted.  There  are  times  when  the 
mind  should  lie  fallow,  and  all  who  have  lived  the  intel- 
lectual hfe  with  profit  have  perceived  that  it  is  often  in 
those  times  that  it  most  regains  the  elasticity  it  may 
have  lost   and  becomes    most  prolific    in   spontaneous 


INEQUALITIES   OF  TIME  313 

thought.  Many  periods  of  life  which  might  at  first  sight 
appear  to  be  merely  unused  time  are,  in  truth,  among  the 
most  really  valuable. 

We  have  all  noticed  the  curious  fact  of  the  extreme 
apparent  inequalities  of  time,  though  it  is,  in  its  essence, 
of  all  things  the  most  uniform.  Periods  of  pain  or  acute 
discomfort  seem  unnaturally  long,  but  this  lengthening  of 
time  is  fortunately  not  true  of  all  the  melancholy  scenes 
of  life,  nor  is  it  peculiar  to  things  that  are  painful.  An 
invalid  life  with  its  almost  unbroken  monotony,  and  with 
the  large  measure  of  torpor  that  often  accompanies  it, 
usually  flies  very  quickly,  and  most  persons  must  have 
observed  how  the  first  week  of  travel,  or  of  some  other 
great  change  of  habits  and  pursuits,  though  often  attended 
with  keen  enjoyment,  appears  disproportionately  long. 
Eoutine  shortens  and  variety  lengthens  time,  and  it  is 
therefore  in  the  power  of  men  to  do  something  to  regulate 
its  pace.  A  life  with  many  landmarks,  a  life  which  is 
much  subdivided  when  those  subdivisions  are  not  of 
the  same  kind,  and  when  new  and  diverse  interests,  im- 
pressions, and  labours  follow  each  other  in  swift  and 
distinct  succession,  seems  the  most  long,  and  youth, 
with  its  keen  susceptibility  to  impressions,  appears  to 
move  much  more  slowly  than  apathetic  old  age.  How 
almost  immeasurably  long  to  a  young  child  seems 
the  period  from  birthday  to  birthday !  How  long  to 
the  schoolboy  seems  the  interval  betw^een  vacation  and 
vacation !  How  rapid  as  we  go  on  in  life  becomes  the 
awful  beat  of  each  recurring  year !  "When  the  feeling  of 
novelty  has  grown  rare,  and  when  interests  have  lost 
their  edge,  time  glides  by  with  an  ever-increasing  celerity. 
Campbell  has  justly  noticed  as  a  beneficent  provision  of 
nature  that  it  is  in  the  period  of  life  when  enjoyments 


314  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

are  fewest,  and  infirmities  most  numerous,  that  the  march 
of  time  seems  most  rapid. 

The  more  we  live,  more  brief  appear 

Our  life's  succeeding  stages, 
A  day  to  childhood  seems  a  year, 

And  years  like  passing  ages. 


When  Joys  have  lost  their  bloom^^and  breath, 

And  life  itself  is  vapid, 
Why  as  we  reach  the  Falls  of  death 

Feel  we  its  tide  more  rapid  ? 

Heaven  gives  our  years  of  fading  strength 

Indemnifying  fleetness ; 
And  those  of  youth  a  seeming  length 

Proportioned  to  their  sweetness. 

The  shortness  of  Hfe  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
literature.  Yet  though  we  may  easily  conceive  beings 
with  faculties  both  of  mind  and  body  adapted  to  a  far 
longer  Hfe  than  ours,  it  will  usually  be  found,  with  our 
existing  powers,  that  life,  if  not  prematurely  shortened, 
is  long  enough.  In  the  case  of  men  who  have  played  a 
great  part  in  public  affairs,  the  best  work  is  nearly  always 
done  before  old  age.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  although 
a  Senate,  by  its  very  derivation,  means  an  assembly 
of  old  men,  and  although  in  the  Senate  of  Kome,  which 
was  the  greatest  of  all,  the  members  sat  for  life,  there 
was  a  special  law  providing  that  no  Senator,  after  sixty, 
should  be  summoned  to  attend  his  duty.^  In  the  past 
centuries  active  septuagenarian  statesmen  were  very  rare, 
and  in  parliamentary  life  almost  unknown.  In  our  own 
century  there  have  been  brilliant  exceptions,  but  in  most 
cases  it  will  be  found  that  the  true  glory  of  these  states- 
men rests  on  what  they  had  done  before  old  age,  and 
sometimes  the  undue  prolongation  of  their  active  lives 
has   been    a    grave    misfortune  not   only  to   their   own 

'  Seneca,  de  Brevitate  Vita,  cap.  xx. 


LIFE   OFTEN   TOO   LONG  315 

reputations,  but  also  to  the  nations  they  influenced. 
Often,  indeed,  while  faculties  diminish,  self-confidence, 
even  in  good  men,  increases.  Moral  and  intellectual 
failings  that  had  been  formerly  repressed  take  root  and 
spread,  and  it  is  no  small  blessing  that  they  have  but 
a  short  time  to  run  their  course.  In  the  case  of  men  of 
great  capacities  the  follies  of  age  are  perhaps  even  more 
to  be  feared  than  the  follies  of  youth.  When  men  have 
made  a  great  reputation  and  acquired  a  great  authority, 
when  they  become  the  objects  of  the  flattery  of  nations, 
and  when  they  can,  with  little  trouble,  or  thought,  or 
study,  attract  universal  attention,  a  new  set  of  tempta- 
tions begins.  Their  heads  are  apt  to  be  turned.  The 
feeling  of  responsibility  grows  weaker ;  the  old  judgment, 
caution,  deliberation,  self-restraint,  and  timidity  disappear. 
Obstinacy  and  prejudice  strengthen,  while  at  the  same  time 
the  force  of  the  reasoning  will  diminishes.  Sometimes, 
through  a  failing  that  is  partly  intellectual,  but  partly  also 
moral,  they  almost  wholly  lose  the  power  of  realising  or 
recognising  new  conditions,  discoveries,  and  necessities. 
They  view  with  jealousy  the  rise  of  new  reputations  and 
of  younger  men,  and  the  well-earned  authority  of  an  old 
man  becomes  the  most  formidable  obstacle  to  improve- 
ment. In  the  field  of  politics,  in  the  field  of  science,  and 
in  the  field  of  military  organisation,  these  truths  might  be 
abundantly  illustrated.  In  the  case  of  great  but  maleficent 
genius  the  shortness  of  life  is  a  priceless  blessing.  Few 
greater  curses  could  be  imagined  for  the  human  race  than 
the  prolongation  for  centuries  of  the  life  of  Napoleon. 

In  literature  also  the  same  law  may  be  detected.  A 
writer's  best  thoughts  are  usually  expressed  long  before 
extreme  old  age,  though  the  habit  and  desire  of  produc- 
tion continue.     The  time  of  repetition,  of  diluted  force, 


316  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

and  of  weakened  judgment — the  age  when  the  mind  has 
lost  its  flexibility,  and  can  no  longer  assimilate  new  ideas 
or  keep  pace  with  the  changing  modes  and  tendencies  of 
another  generation — often  sets  in  while  physical  life  is  but 
little  enfeebled.  In  this  case,  it  is  true,  the  evil  is  not 
very  great,  for  Time  may  be  trusted  to  sift  the  chaff  from 
the  wheat,  and  though  it  may  not  preserve  the  one,  it  will 
infalHbly  discard  the  other.  'While  I  live,'  Victor  Hugo 
said  with  some  grandiloquence,  but  also  with  some  justice, 
'  it  is  my  duty  to  produce.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  world  to 
select,  from  what  I  produce,  that  which  is  worth  keeping. 
The  world  will  discharge  its  duty.  I  shall  discharge 
mine.'  At  the  same  time,  no  one  can  have  failed  to 
observe  how  much  in  our  own  generatioQ  the  long  silence 
of  Newman  in  his  old  age  added  to  his  dignity  and  his 
reputation,  and  the  same  thing  might  have  been  said  of 
Carlyle  if  a  beneficent  fire  had  destroj^ed  the  unrevised 
manuscripts  which  he  wrote  or  dictated  when  a  very 
old  man. 

We  are  here,  however,  dealing  with  great  labours,  and 
with  men  who  are  filling  a  great  place  in  the  world's 
strife.  The  decay  of  faculty  and  will,  that  impairs  power 
in  these  cases,  is  often  perceptible  long  before  there  is 
any  real  decay  in  the  powers  that  are  needed  for  ordinary 
business  or  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  life.  But  the  time 
comes  when  children  have  grown  into  maturity,  and  when 
it  becomes  desirable  that  a  younger  generation  should  take 
the  government  of  the  world,  should  inherit  its  wealth, 
its  power,  its  dignities,  its  many  means  of  influence  and 
enjoyment ;  and  this  cannot  be  fully  done  till  the  older 
generation  is  laid  to  rest.  Often,  indeed,  old  age,  when  it 
is  free  from  grave  infirmities,  and  from  great  trials  and 
privations,  is  the  most  honoured,  the  most  tranquil,  and 


OLD   AGE  317 

perhaps  on  the  whole  the  happiest  period  of  hfe.  The 
struggles,  passions,  and  ambitions  of  other  days  have 
passed.  The  mellowing  touch  of  time  has  allayed 
animosities,  subdued  old  asperities  of  character,  given  a 
larger  and  more  tolerant  judgment,  cured  the  morbid 
sensitiveness  that  most  embitters  life.  The  old  man's 
mind  is  stored  with  the  memories  of  a  well-filled  and 
honourable  life.  In  the  long  leisures  that  now  fall  to  his 
lot  he  is  often  enabled  to  resume  projects  which,  in  a 
crowded  professional  life,  he  had  been  obliged  to  adjourn  ; 
he  finds  (as  Adam  Smith  has  said)  that  one  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  in  life  is  reverting  in  old  age  to  the  studies  of 
youth,  and  he  himself  often  feels  something  of  the  thrill 
of  a  second  youth  in  his  sympathy  with  the  children  who 
are  around  him.  It  is  the  St.  Martin's  summer,  lighting 
with  a  pale  but  beautiful  gleam  the  brief  November  day. 
But  the  time  must  come  when  all  the  alternatives  of 
life  are  sad,  and  the  least  sad  is  a  speedy  and  painless 
'end.  "When  the  eye  has  ceased  to  see  and  the  ear  to 
hear,  when  the  mind  has  failed  and  all  the  friends 
of  youth  are  gone,  and  the  old  man's  life  becomes  a 
burden  not  only  to  himself  but  to  those  about  him,  it  is 
far  better  that  he  should  quit  the  scene.  If  a  natural 
clinging  to  life,  or  a  natural  shrinking  from  death,  pre- 
vents him  from  clearly  realising  this,  it  is  at  least  fully 
seen  by  all  others. 

Nor,  indeed,  does  this  love  of  life  in  most  cases  of 
extreme  old  age  greatly  persist.  Few  things  are  sadder 
than  to  see  the  young,  or  those  in  mature  life,  seeking, 
according  to  the  current  phrase,  to  find  means  of  '  killing 
time.'  But  in  extreme  old  age,  when  the  power  of  work, 
the  power  of  reading,  the  pleasures  of  society,  have  gone, 
this  phrase  acquires  a  new  significance.     As  Madame  de 


318  THE   MAP   OF   LIFE 

Stael  has  beautifully  said,  *  On  depose  fleur  a  fleur  la 
couronne  de  la  vie.'  An  apathy  steals  over  every  faculty, 
and  rest — unbroken  rest — becomes  the  chief  desire.  I 
remember  a  touching  epitaph  in  a  German  churchyard : 
*  I  will  arise,  Oh  Christ,  when  Thou  callest  me  ;  but  oh ! 
let  me  rest  awhile,  for  I  am  very  weary.' 

After  all  that  can  be  said,  most  men  are  reluctant 
to  look  Time  in  the  face.  The  close  of  the  year  or  a 
birthday  is  to  them  merely  a  time  of  revelry,  into  which 
they  enter  in  order  to  turn  away  from  depressing  thought. 
They  shrink  from  what  seems  to  them  the  dreary  truth, 
that  they  are  drifting  to  a  dark  abyss.  To  many  the 
milestones  along  the  path  of  life  are  tombstones,  every 
epoch  being  mainly  associated  in  their  memories  with  a 
death.  To  some  past  time  is  nothing — a  closed  chapter 
never  to  be  reopened. 

The  past  is  nothing,  and  at  last, 
The  future  can  but  be  the  past. 

To  others,  the  thought  of  the  work  achieved  in  the 
vanished  years  is  the  most  real  and  abiding  of  their 
possessions.  They  can  feel  the  force  of  the  noble  lines 
of  Dryden : 

Not  Heaven  itself  upon  the  past  has  power, 

That  which  has  been  has  been,  and  I  have  had  my  hour. 

He  who  would  look  Time  in  the  face  without  illusion 
and  without  fear  should  associate  each  year  as  it  passes 
with  new  developments  of  his  nature ;  with  duties  accom- 
plished, with  work  performed.  To  fill  the  time  allotted 
to  us  to  the  brim  with  action  and  with  thought  is  the 
only  way  in  which  we  can  learn  to  watch  its  passage 
with  equanimity. 


PAGAN  VIEW   OF   DEATH  319 


CHAPTEK   XVII 

*  THE   END ' 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  circumstances  not  wildly  different 
from  those  of  actual  life  that  would,  if  not  altogether,  at 
least  very  largely,  take  from  death  the  gloom  that  com- 
monly surrounds  it.  If  all  the  members  of  the  human 
race  either  died  before  two  or  after  seventy  ;  if  death  was 
in  all  cases  the  swift  and  painless  thing  that  it  is  with 
many ;  and  if  the  old  man  always  left  behind  him 
children  to  perpetuate  his  name,  his  memory,  and  his 
thoughts,  Death,  though  it  might  still  seem  a  sad  thing, 
would  certainly  not  excite  the  feelings  it  now  so  often 
produces.  Of  all  the  events  that  befall  us,  it  is  that 
which  owes  most  of  its  horror  not  to  itself,  but  to  its 
accessories,  its  associations,  and  to  the  imaginations  that 
cluster  around  it.  *  Death,'  indeed,  as  a  great  stoical 
moralist  said,  '  is  the  only  evil  that  can  never  touch  us. 
When  we  are,  death  is  not.  When  death  comes,  we  are 
not.' 

The  composition  of  treatises  of  consolation  intended  to 
accustom  men  to  contemplate  death  without  terror  was 
one  of  the  favourite  exercises  of  the  philosophers  in  the 
Augustan  and  in  the  subsequent  periods  of  Pagan  Kome. 
The  chapter  which  Cicero  has  devoted  to  this  subject  in 
his  treatise  on  old  age  is  a  beautiful  example  of  how  it 
appeared  to  a  virtuous  pagan,  who  believed  in  a  future 


320  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

life  which  would  bring  him  into  communion  with  those 
whom  he  had  loved  and  lost  on  earth,  but  who  at  the 
same  time  recognised  this  only  as  a  probability,  not  a 
certainty.  Death,  he  said,  *  is  an  event  either  utterly  to 
be  disregarded  if  it  extinguish  the  soul's  existence,  or 
much  to  be  wished  if  it  convey  her  to  some  region  where 
she  shall  continue  to  exist  for  ever.  One  of  these  two 
consequences  must  necessarily  follow  the  disunion  of  soul 
and  body ;  there  is  no  other  possible  alternative.  What 
then  have  I  to  fear  if  after  death  I  shall  either  not  be 
miserable,  or  shall  certainly  be  happy  ?  ' 

Vague  notions,  however,  of  a  dim,  twilight,  shadowy 
world  where  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  lived  a  faint  and  joy- 
less existence,  and  from  whence  they  sometimes  returned 
to  haunt  the  living  in  their  dreams,  were  widely  spread 
through  the  popular  imaginations,  and  it  was  as  the 
extinction  of  all  superstitious  fears  that  the  school  of 
Lucretius  and  Pliny  welcomed  the  belief  that  all  things 
ended  with  death — *  Post  mortem  nihil  est,  ipsaque  mors 
nihil.'  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  certain  that  even  in  the 
school  of  Plato  the  thought  of  another  life  had  a  great 
and  operative  influence  on  minds  and  characters..  Death 
was  chiefly  represented  as  rest ;  as  the  close  of  a  banquet ; 
as  the  universal  law  of  nature  which  befalls  all  living 
beings,  though  the  immense  majority  encounter  it  at  an 
earlier  period  than  man.  It  was  thought  of  simply  as 
sleep —dreamless,  undisturbed  sleep — the  final  release 
from  all  the  sorrows,  sufferings,  anxieties,  labours,  and 
longings  of  life. 

We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep.' 

'  The  Tempest. 


EARLY   CHRISTIAN  IDEAS   OF  DEATH  321 

The  best  of  rest  is  sleep, 
And  that  thou  oft  provok'st ;  yet  grossly  fear'st 
Thy  death,  which  is  no  more.* 

To  die  is  landing  on  some  silent  shore 
Where  billows  never  break,  nor  tempests  roar.' 

It  is  a  strange  thing  to  observe  to  what  a  height  not 
only  of  moral  excellence,  but  also  of  devotional  fervour, 
men  have  risen  without  any  assistance  from  the  doctrine 
of  a  future  life.  Only  the  faintest  and  most  dubious 
glimmer  of  such  a  belief  can  be  traced  in  the  Psalms,  in 
which  countless  generations  of  Christians  have  found 
the  fullest  expression  of  their  devotional  feelings,  or  in 
the  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  which  are  perhaps 
the  purest  product  of  pagan  piety. 

As  I  have  already  said,  I  am  endeavouring  in  this 
book  to  steer  clear  of  questions  of  contested  theologies ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  noticing  the  great  changes 
that  have  been  introduced  into  the  conception  of  death 
by  some  of  the  teaching  which  in  different  forms  has 
grown  up  under  the  name  of  Christianity,  though  much 
of  it  may  be  traced  in  germ  to  earlier  periods  of  human 
development.  Death  in  itself  was  made  incomparably 
more  terrible  by  the  notion  that  it  was  not  a  law  but 
a  punishment ;  that  sufferings  inconceivably  greater 
than  those  of  Earth  awaited  the  great  masses  of  the 
human  race  beyond  the  grave  ;  that  an  event  which  was 
believed  to  have  taken  place  ages  before  we  were  born,  or 
small  frailties  such  as  the  best  of  us  cannot  escape,  were 
sufficient  to  bring  men  under  this  condemnation ;  that 
the  only  paths  to  safety  were  to  be  found  in  ecclesiastical 
ceremonies ;  in  the  assistance  of  priests ;  in  an  accurate 
choice  among  competing  theological  doctrines.  At  the  same 

*  Measure  for  Measure.  '  Garth. 

Y 


322  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

time  the  largest  and  most  powerful  of  the  Churches  of 
Christendom  has,  during  many  centuries,  done  its  utmost 
to  intensify  the  natural  fear  of  death  by  associating  it 
in  the  imaginations  of  men  with  loathsome  images  and 
appalling  surroundings.  There  can  be  no  greater  con- 
trast than  that  between  the  Greek  tomb  with  its  garlands 
of  flowers,  its  bright,  youthful  and  restful  imagery,  and 
the  mortuary  chapels  that  may  often  be  found  in  Catholic 
countries,  with  their  ghastly  pictures  of  the  saved  souls 
writhing  in  purgatorial  flames,  while  the  inscription  above 
and  the  money-box  below  point  out  the  one  means  of 
alleviating  their  lot. 

Fermati,  0  Passagiero,  mira  tormenti. 
Siamo  abbandonati  dai  nostri  parenti. 
Di  noi  abbiate  pieta,  o  voi  amici  cari. 

This  is  one  side  of  the  picture.  On  the  other  hand 
it  cannot  be  questioned  that  the  strong  convictions 
and  impressive  ceremonies,  even  of  the  most  superstitious 
faith,  have  consoled  and  strengthened  multitudes  in  their 
last  moments,  and  in  the  purer  and  more  enlightened 
forms  of  Christianity  death  now  wears  a  very  different 
aspect  from  what  it  did  in  the  teaching  of  mediaeval 
Catholicism,  or  of  some  of  the  sects  that  grew  out  of  the 
Reformation.  Human  life  ending  in  the  weakness  of  old 
age  and  in  the  corruption  of  the  tomb  will  always  seem 
a  humiliating  anti-climax,  and  often  a  hideous  injustice. 
The  belief  in  the  rightful  supremacy  of  conscience,  and 
in  an  eternal  moral  law  redressing  the  many  wrongs  and 
injustices  of  life,  and  securing  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
good  over  evil ;  the  incapacity  of  earth  and  earthly  things 
to  satisfy  our  cravings  and  ideals  ;  the  instinctive  revolt 
of  human  nature  against  the  idea  of  annihilation,  and  its 


THE  DESIRE   FOR   IMMORTALITY  823 

capacity  for  affections  and  attachments,  which  seem  by 
their  intensity  to  transcend  the  limits  of  earth  and  carry 
with  them  in  moments  of  bereavement  a  persuasion  or 
conviction  of  something  that  endmres  beyond  the  grave — 
all  these  things  have  found  in  Christian  beliefs  a  sanction 
and  a  satisfaction  that  men  had  failed  to  find  in  Socrates 
or  Cicero,  or  in  the  vague  Pantheism  to  which  unassisted 
reason  naturally  inclines. 

Looking,  however,  on  death  in  its  purely  human 
aspects,  the  mourner  should  consider  how  often  in  a  long 
illness  he  wished  the  dying  man  could  sleep  ;  how  con- 
soling to  his  mind  was  the  thought  of  every  hour  of 
peaceful  rest ;  of  every  hour  in  which  the  patient  was 
withdrawn  from  consciousness,  insensible  to  suffering, 
removed  for  a  time  from  the  miseries  of  a  dying  life. 
He  should  ask  himself  whether  these  intervals  of  insensi^ 
bility  were  not  on  the  whole  the  happiest  in  the  illness — 
those  which  he  would  most  have  wished  to  multiply  or 
to  prolong.  He  should  accustom  himself  then  to  think 
of  death  as  sleep — undisturbed  sleep — the  only  sleep  from 
which  man  never  wakes  to  pain. 

You  find  yourself  in  the  presence  of  what  is  a  far 
deeper  and  more  poignant  trial  than  an  old  man's  death — 
a  young  life  cut  off  in  its  prime ;  the  eclipse  of  a  sun 
before  the  evening  has  arrived.  Accustom  yourself  ta 
consider  the  life  that  has  passed  as  a  whole.  A  human 
being  has  been  called  into  the  world — has  lived  in  it  ten^ 
twenty,  thirty  years.  It  seems  to  you  an  intolerable 
instance  of  the  injustice  of  fate  that  he  is  so  early  cut  off^ 
Estimate  then  that  life  as  a  whole,  and  ask  yourself 
whether,  so  judged,  it  has  been  a  blessing  or  the  reverse. 
Count  up  the  years  of  happiness.  Count  up  the  days, 
or  perhaps  weeks,  of  illness  and  of  pain.     Measure  the 


324  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

happiness  that  this  short  life  has  given  to  some  who  have 
passed  away;  who  never  Hved  to  see  its  early  close. 
Balance  the  happiness  which  during  its  existence  it  gave 
to  those  who  survived,  with  the  poignancy  and  the  dura- 
tion of  pain  caused  by  the  loss.  Here,  e.g.  is  one  who 
lived  perhaps  twenty-five  years  in  health  and  vigour — 
whose  life  during  that  period  was  chequered  by  no  serious 
misfortune;  whose  nature,  though  from  time  to  time 
clouded  by  petty  anxieties  and  cares,  was  on  the  whole 
bright,  buoyant,  and  happy ;  who  had  the  capacity  of 
vivid  enjoyment,  and  many  opportunities  of  attaining  it — 
who  felt  all  the  thrill  of  health  and  friendship  and  ecstatic 
pleasure.  Then  came  a  change — a  year  or  two  with  a 
crippled  wing — life,  though  not  abjectly  wretched,  on  the 
whole  a  burden,  and  then  the  end.  You  can  easily  con- 
ceive ;  you  can  ardently  desire  a  better  lot,  but  judge 
fairly  the  lights  and  shades  of  what  has  been.  Does  not 
the  happiness  on  the  whole  exceed  the  evil?  Can  you 
honestly  say  that  this  life  has  been  a  curse  and  not  a 
blessing  ? — that  it  would  have  been  better  if  it  had  never 
been  called  out  of  nothingness  ? — that  it  would  have  been 
better  if  the  drama  had  never  been  played  ?  It  is  over 
now.  As  you  lay  in  his  last  home  the  object  of  so 
much  love,  ask  yourself  whether,  even  in  a  mere  human 
point  of  view,  tbis  parenthesis  between  two  darknesses 
has  not  been  on  the  whole  productive  of  more  happi- 
ness than  pain  to  him  and  to  those  around  him. 

It  was  an  ancient  saying  that  *  he  whom  the  gods  love 
dies  young,'  and  more  than  one  legend  representing 
speedy  and  painless  death  as  the  greatest  of  blessings  has 
descended  to  us  from  pagan  antiquity ;  while  other  legends, 
like  that  of  Tithonus,  anticipated  the  picture  which  Swift 
has  so  powerfully  but  so  repulsively  drawn  of  the  misery 


PREMATURE   DEATH  326 

of  old  age  and  its  infirmities,  if  death  did  not  come  as  a 
release.  I  have  elsewhere  related  an  old  Irish  legend  em- 
bodying this  truth.  '  In  a  certain  lake  in  Munster,  it  is 
said,  there  were  two  islands ;  into  the  first  death  could  never 
enter,  but  age  and  sickness,  and  the  weariness  of  life  and 
the  paroxysms  of  fearful  suffering  were  all  known  there, 
and  they  did  their  work  till  the  inhabitants,  tired  of  their 
immortality,  learned  to  look  upon  the  opposite  island  as 
upon  a  haven  of  repose.  They  launched  their  barks  upon 
its  gloomy  w^aters  ;  they  touched  its  shore,  and  they  were 
at  rest.'  ^ 

No  one,  however,  can  confidently  say  whether  an  early 
death  is  a  misfortune,  for  no  one  can  really  know  what 
calamities  would  have  befallen  the  dead  man  if  his  life 
had  been  prolonged.  How  often  does  it  happen  that  the 
children  of  a  dead  parent  do  things  or  suffer  things  that 
would  have  broken  his  heart  if  he  had  lived  to  see  them ! 
How  often  do  painful  diseases  lurk  in  germ  in  the  body 
which  would  have  produced  unspeakable  misery  if  an 
early  and  perhaps  a  painless  death  had  not  anticipated 
their  development !  How  often  do  mistakes  and  mis- 
fortunes cloud  the  evening  and  mar  the  beauty  of  a  noble 
life,  or  moral  infirmities,  unperceived  in  youth  or  early 
manhood,  break  out  before  the  day  is  over !  Who  is  there 
who  has  not  often  said  to  himself  as  he  looked  back  on 
a  completed  life,  how  much  happier  it  would  have  been 
had  it  ended  sooner  ?  *  Give  us  timely  death  '  is  in  truth 
one  of  the  best  prayers  that  man  can  pray.  Pain,  not 
death,  is  the  real  enemy  to  be  combated,  and  in  this 
combat  at  least,  man  can  do  much.  Few  men  can  have 
lived  long  without  realising  how  many  things  are  worse 

'  Hist,   of  European  Morals,  i.   p.   203.     The   legend  is  related   by 
Camden. 


326  THE   MAP   OF  LIFE 

than  death,  and  how  many  knots  there  are  in  life  that 
Death  alone  can  untie. 

Eemember,  above  all,  that  whatever  may  lie  beyond 
the  tomb,  the  tomb  itself  is  nothing  to  you.  The  narrow 
prison-house,  the  gloomy  pomp,  the  hideousness  of  decay, 
are  known  to  the  living  and  the  living  alone.  By  a  too 
common  illusion  of  the  imagination,  men  picture  them- 
selves as  consciously  dead — going  through  the  process  of 
corruption,  and  aware  of  it ;  imprisoned  with  the  know- 
ledge of  the  fact  in  the  most  hideous  of  dungeons. 
Endeavour  earnestly  to  erase  this  illusion  from  your 
mind,  for  it  lies  at  the  root  of  the  fear  of  death,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  worst  sides  of  mediaeval  and  of  much  modern 
teaching  and  art  that  it  tends  to  strengthen  it.  Nothing, 
if  we  truly  realise  it,  is  less  real  than  the  grave.  We 
should  be  no  more  concerned  with  the  after  fate  of  our 
discarded  bodies  than  with  that  of  the  hair  which  the 
hair-cutter  has  cut  off.  The  sooner  they  are  resolved 
into  their  primitive  elements  the  better.  The  imagination 
should  never  be  suffered  to  dwell  upon  their  decay. 

Bacon  has  justly  noticed  that  while  death  is  often 
regarded  as  the  supreme  evil,  there  is  no  human  passion 
that  does  not  become  so  powerful  as  to  lead  men  to 
despise  it.  It  is  not  in  the  waning  days  of  life,  but  in 
the  full  strength  of  youth,  that  men  through  ambition, 
or  the  mere  love  of  excitement,  fearlessly  and  joyously 
encounter  its  risk.  Encountered  in  hot  blood  it  is 
seldom  feared,  and  innumerable  accounts  of  shipwrecks 
and  other  accidents,  and  many  episodes  in  every  war, 
show  conclusively  how  calmly  honour,  duty,  and  discipline 
can  enable  men  of  no  extraordinary  characters,  virtues, 
or  attainments,  to  meet  it  even  when  it  comes  before 
them  suddenly,  as  an  inevitable  fact,  and  without  any 


THE   CLOSE   OF   LIFE  327 

of  that  excitement  which  might  bhnd  their  eyes.  If 
we  analyse  our  own  feehngs  on  the  death  of  those  we 
love,  we  shall  probably  find  that,  except  in  cases  where 
life  is  prematurely  shortened  and  much  promise  cut  off, 
pity  for  the  dead  person  is  rarely  a  marked  element.  The 
feelings  which  had  long  been  exclusively  concentrated  on 
the  sufferings  of  the  dying  man  take  a  new  course  when 
the  moment  of  death  arrives.  It  is  the  sudden  blank ; 
the  separation  from  him  who  is  dear  to  us ;  the  cessation 
of  the  long  reciprocity  of  love  and  pleasure,  in  a  word 
our  own  loss,  that  affects  us  then.  *  A  happy  release '  is 
perhaps  the  phrase  most  frequently  heard  around  a 
death-bed.  And  as  we  look  back  through  the  vista  of  a 
few  years,  and  have  learned  to  separate  death  more  clearly 
from  the  illness  that  preceded  it,  the  sense  of  its  essential 
peacefulness  and  naturalness  grows  upon  us.  A  vanished 
life  comes  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  day  that  has  past,  but 
leaving  many  memories  behind  it. 

It  is,  I  think,  a  healthy  tendency  that  is  leading  men 
in  our  own  generation  to  turn  away  as  much  as  possible 
from  the  signs  and  the  contemplation  of  death.  The 
pomp  and  elaboration  of  funerals ;  protracted  mournings 
surrounding  us  with  the  gloom  of  an  ostentatious  and 
artificial  sorrow ;  above  all  the  long  suspension  of  those 
active  habits  which  nature  intended  to  be  the  chief 
medicine  of  grief,  are  things  which  at  least  in  the  English- 
speaking  world  are  manifestly  declining.  We  should  try 
to  think  of  those  who  have  passed  away  as  they  were  at 
their  best,  and  not  in  sickness  or  in  decay.  True  sorrow 
needs  no  ostentation  ;  and  the  gloom  of  death  no  artificial 
enhancement.  Every  good  man,  knowing  the  certainty 
of  death  and  the  uncertainty  of  its  hour,  will  make  it  one 
of  his  first  duties  to  provide  for  those  he  loves  when  he 


328  THE   MAP  OF   LIFE 

has  himself  passed  away,  and  to  do  all  in  his  power  to 
make  the  period  of  bereavement  as  easy  as  possible. 
This  is  the  last  service  he  can  render  before  the  ranks  are 
closed,  and  his  place  is  taken,  and  the  days  of  forgetful- 
ness  set  in.  In  careers  of  riot  and  of  vice  the  thought  of 
death  may  have  a  salutary  restraining  influence  ;  but  in  a 
useful,  busy,  well-ordered  life  it  should  have  little  place. 
It  was  not  the  Stoics  alone  who  'bestowed  too  much 
cost  on  death,  and  by  their  preparations  made  it  more 
fearful.'  ^  As  Spinoza  has  taught,  *  the  proper  study  of 
a  wise  man  is  not  how  to  die  but  how  to  live,'  and  as 
long  as  he  is  discharging  this  task  aright  he  may  leave 
the  end  to  take  care  of  itself.  The  great  guiding  land- 
marks of  a  wise  life  are  indeed  few  and  simple — to  do 
our  duty — to  avoid  useless  sorrow — to  acquiesce  patiently 
in  the  inevitable. 

'  Bacon. 


FINIS. 


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